University of Virginia - Corks and Curls Yearbook (Charlottesville, VA)

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avfew months after his graduation at the University of Virginia he went to New York and matriculated at the Bellevue Medical College, and in one session ac- quired. the degree of M. D. Following his graduation at Bellevue he was attached to var1ous hospitals in New York and Brooklyn, conspicuously the Bfooklyn City Hospital and the Charity Hospital on Blackwell's Island ; at the latter he devoted himself especially to the study of the diseases of women and children. He was i also for a while, one of the physicians to the poor of New York City. During :7 his Brooklyn life he had attracted the attention of Dr. Joseph Hutchinson, one of the most prominent medical men of that city, who urged and secured his appoint- ment as one of the five Inspectors of the Board of Health-a position much sought after in those days. This post he was filling most creditably when his twenty-first birthday dawned. Even at this early date, Dr. Reed had acquired a very enviable standing among the medical men of New York and Brooklyn, among whom he was especially well known for his skill as a surgeon. W ithin a few years, as we have seen, he had been holding various professional positions of responsibility, but he could not help feeling that there was a point beyond which he could not go on the road toward that success which he coveted, without the inHuence of wealthy friends and of infiuential social connections on the spot. Thus it was that in 1874 he began to think seriously of entering the Medical Corps of the Army or of the Navy, and, by the spring of 1875, he had chosen the Army as the field for his future labors. :k 2!: 5k i: :34 Turning to the military history of Major Walter Reed, as borne upon the records at the office of the Surgeon General of the Army, we find that he was appointed Assistant Surgeon with the rank of First Lieutenant June 26, I875; promoted to be Assistant Surgeon with the rank of Captain June 26, 1880; 1;: Surgeon with rank of Major December 4, 1893; and at the time of his death was :11, , first on the list of Majors in the Medical Department. . i He was on duty in the Department of the East from July 23, 1875, to May 21, 1876; in the Department of Arizona from June, 1876, to May, 1880; again in the Department of the East from September, 1880, to November, 1882. From Novem- ber, 1882, to July, 1887, he was attached to the Department of the Platte, and from August, 1887, to October, 1890, he was on duty at Mt. Vernon Barracks, Alabama. His next assignment was to duty in Baltimore, Md., from October, 1890, to October, 1891, when he was transferred to the Department of Dakota, where he remained until August, 1893, when he was ordered to duty in the office a of the Surgeon General of the Army. Under this assignment he was Curator of the Army Medical Museum and Member of the Faculty of the Army Medical School for over nine years and up to the date of his death, which occurred in this city November 23, 1902.

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A . .w AQAMVnw-W'LV .4 3.5.?! r: - , -rr-?Mm Amwamh r a ' AM. -Q . J Magsss WaEtee Ree$s Surgeon in the Army of the United States of America, and a Graduate of the University of Virginia. N giving a description of the life and work of the late Major Reed, the editors have quoted below extracts from the speeches of his comrades and friends, adding to these brief passages from the Congressional Record. All the speeches referred to were made at a memorial meeting held in honor of Major Reed by the Medical Society of the District of Columbia, December 31, 1902. :ki:i:$:!k Historical Remarks by MEDICAL DIRECTOR R. A. MARMION, U. S. N avy. Mr. President and Members of the Medical Society of the District of Colum- bia: Walter Reed was born in Gloucester County, Virginia, on the thirteenth of September, 1851, and was the son of Rev. Lemuel Sutton Reed, who was for forty years or more an eminent Methodist minister. In his personal appearance Walter was highly favored even in his youth, and to this there were added a gentleness of disposition and a graciousness of manner which won for him the admiration of all who were brought in contact with himaqualities which we know were characteristic of him ever after. Intellectually he was, as a boy, precocious and devoted to study, so that at the age of fifteen he had acquired a knowledge of Latin and Greek rarely found in one so young. History, literature, and philoso- Owing, how- , was maintaining two other sons at the same school, it became evident to Walter that he would not be able to C out his original plan of completing the AC the following year he began the study of nine months he was awarded the d was not yet eighteen years of age. vice of friends who had, in advan His only reply to such advisers arry ademic course; so, at the beginning of of medicine, and at the end of one session egree of Doctor of Medicine, although he This feat he accomplished in spite of the ad- Ce, sought to dissuade him from undertaking it. was that ti he did, not fear the result? In 5 ,.. .-..W- at t V

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-.u-w.-ou.. .. , ' thy, In the meantime, too, he served, at several different periods, as Member of the Army Medical Board in this city, was a member of the Cholera Board in July, 1898; was on detached duty making inspections of camps and held hospitals in August, 1898; was member of the Typhoid Fever Board in August, September, and October, 1898; in October, 1898, he was on inspection duty at Natural Bridge, Va., and again in April and May, 1899, at Puerto Principe, Cuba. In March and April, 1900, he was ordered to investigate and report upon the use of electrozone and germicides at Tampa and Havana, and in June and july, 1900, was a member of a Board of Medical Officers at Camp Columbia, Cuba, for the purpose of scientific investigation with reference to infectious diseases prevalent in Cuba, and, from September 27 to October I 3, 1900, on similar duty with regard to yellow fever. These various assignments were of great importance from the stand- point of preventive medicine and did much to solidify the foundation on which he was destined to erect the structure 8 more lasting than brass 8 which t0-day towers above the many works of a life full of labors for the benefit of his fellow- man. is 3k :k :k :1: Major Reed as a Medical Officer, by MAJOR J. R. KEAN, Swgeon, U. 5. Army. In speaking of Dr. Reed as a medical ofhcer we should consider especially that part 01 his career with which the members of this Society are least familiar, namely, from his entrance into the Army in 1875 to his assignment to duty in Washington in 1893. With the latter date began his career as a scientific man, although much of his time during this last decade was given to examining boards and other work of a military rather than scientific character, and the race horse spent much time at the plough. These eighteen years of garrison duty were, we may be sure, not wasted, yet the official records tell but little of them. The records show fifteen changes of station twith four years in Arizona, five in the Department of the Platte, two in the Department of Dakota, three in the South, and three in the Easty There are a few brief commendations for professional zeal and devotion to his patients, and that is all. The work of young Army surgeons claims always little space in the gazettes or in the reports of military commanders and in the i70is and ,80is the life was certainly not stinflulatingr to intellectual effort. The surgeon shared with his comrades of the line the tedium of long marches and the monotonous sameness of Arizona summers and Dakota winters. And those with whom bomw camamdeyie outweighed studious industry shared also the afternoons of b0tt1e-p001 and beer, and the nightly seductions 0f draw 7