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

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poker. But for medical officers this life was redeemed by the study of our profes- sion, Which was then beginning to broaden out from ancient channels into the full Hood of recent progress, and it was saved from triviality by those stern responsi- bilities of life and death which practise brings to all physicians. To lesser minds the limitations of such a life might have been narrowing, but for the eager industry and professional devotion of a Reed they made the roots strike deep; and when we are surprised at the rapid growth and splendid fruit of his career as a scien- tist we must remember that in the post surgeo'nis unmarked life the seed was ger-- minated and the roots were lirmly set. But for the opportunities given him by his position in the army, however distinguished he may have become in other ways, it is safe to say that the work with which his fame will always be inseparably con- nected would never have been accomplished by him, During this long appren- ticeship he acquired, too, that perfect familiarity with the conditions and limita- tions of army life which, combined with his scientific knowledge and sound j udg'ment, made him the best sanitary inspector in the Army, and the court of last resort on all sanitary questions. I first learned to know Dr. Reed by reputation when in the spring of ,88 I- followed him in station at Fort Robinson, a two-battalion post in the north- west corner of N ebraska. I learned much of his devotion to his patients, and their devotion to him was equally in evidence. The country about is thinly settled with families locally known as ii Grangersfi who were attempting to support themselves by farming in a grazing country where the rainfall was not sufficient for good crops except only about one year in three.- The crop of babies, how- ever, never failed, and the Klebs-LoefHer bacillus and. the pneumococcus Hourished perennially in their wretched cabins. To Reed is tender and generous spirit the call of these poor people never came in vain, and the trail was never so long or the night so dark as to deter him. In the Winter these rides were really dangerous and a source of much uneasiness to his family and friends for fear of his being overtaken by one of those blizzards in which the stanchest horse turns tail to the wind and the most experienced frontiersman can not see his way, and the danger to the lost traveler is greater than that of a battle. Again we hnd him at Mount V ernon Barracks in Alabama, according to the oflicial statement of his commanding officer, devoting himself with the same ear- nestness and patience to the sick of Geronimois band of Apaches, then held there as prisoners, and to the sick negroes of the surrounding country, as to his own patients in the garrison. Of the first years of his service which he spent in Arizona I gained some knowledge when in the summer of 1896 he came to Key West, my station at that time, to study the blood of variola-there being an epidemic of smallpox there at that time. All day he would sit over his microscope, but the evenings we spent 8 -a-..n.. .. 2-1;

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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

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Ml on the coolest corner of the porch looking out at the quiet tropical sea, while he told reminiscences, suggested it may be by the heat, of his service at Fort Yuma and Camp Apache. These stories were full of that humor which was so char- acteristic and so pleasing a trait of his daily conversation, and some of these were models of the short story. The history of Sally Ann, a Gila monster tnamed after the two ladies of the post most conspicuous in church workl, which the Chaplain captured in his kitchen, and undertook to tame, would have made a perfect maga- zine article just as Reed told it. His account of his summer at Yuma, the hottest of army posts, where the daily July maximum was from 1120 to 1150, still brings back a clear-cut picture to my memory, and I can see him With his messmate, a captain of infantry, who weighed 250 pounds, and the soldier-eor in army par- lance llstrikerii-who hlled the dual role of chef and butler. The captain, a veritable Porthos, sat down to dinner in two garments, with a fan, a towel to wipe his face, and near at hand a pitcher of the largest size full of water from the 011a- for there was no ice. Before him was a large roast of range beef which, after helping Reed, he would consume entirely and likewise empty the water pitcher. On one. occasion Reed took a leave, and in company with another officer and a lady of the garrison going honie, drove in an ambulance one hundred and fifty miles to the railroad. The other officer was charged with the commission of laying in the food for this trip of nearly a week. After they started they found that the provisions consisted simply of crackers and sardines. Reed up to that time had never been able to eat sardines, but he learned on that trip. He had his share also of Indian campaigning, and on one occasion brought into the post a little Indian girl of four or hve, who had been so horribly burned that her people had abandoned her to die. This child he succeeded in saving and brought her up in his family as a nurse for his children, in spite of the warning of that keen old Indian fighter, General Crook. When she was grown, the savage Apache blood asserted itself and she ran away, after giving evidence that fifteen years of gentleness and refinement had not modified the cruel and deceitful character of Memory often holds most fast to trivial things, but they are usually characteristic. So, though what has come into my mind to tell you of our dead friend is not of weighty matters, yet they show the odd vicissitudes of Army life and show him as he was-the pleasant comrade, the eager student, and the de- voted doctor, gentle, unselfish, modest and brave, as the gentle and devoted ever are. Over this earnest spirit and the high purposes of his life played always a merry and kindly humor like the dancing lights and reflections from the surface of a deep, swift river. It was often keen, but never bitter, and was his most striking social characteristic, as was devotion to the duty which was before him the dominant feature of his professional life. For him, as for the great Duke-- 9