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

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The path of duty was the way to glory. i He that walks it only thirsting For the truth, and learns to deaden Love of self, before his journey closes, He shall find the stubborn thistle bursting Into glossy purples which outredden A11 voluptuous garden roses. He that ever follows her commands On With toil of heart and knees and hands Through the long gorge to the far light has won His path upward and prevailed, Shall iind the toppling crags of. Duty scaled Are close upon the shining table-lands To which our God himself is moon and sun, Such was he-his work is done. :i: bk :1: 9k ak Dr. Reed's W ark m Cuba, by MAJOR GENERAL LEONAnD WOOD, U. 5. Army. ' tAbstractQ f , g - The work of Dr. Walter Reed is the most important work in the way of : medical research and discovery which has been accomplished by any one who i i has lived in this hemisphere. There is no other medical discovery to which it can be compared, unless it be that of anesthesia. The results to humanity are in- ; calculable and far-reaching. It is safe to say that this discovery has resulted in i. i saving each year more lives than were lost in the war with Spain, and in a saving to commerce, and especially to the southern portion of our country, of an amount equal to the cost of the war with Spain. :14 2k :k :1: $ Recommendation of SECRETARY OF WAR m Report for yeafr 1902. it The brilliant character of this scientific achievement, its inestimable value to mankind, the saving of thousands of lives, and the deliverance of the Atlantic seacoast from constant apprehension, demand special recognition from the Gov- i ernment of the United States. ii Dr. Reed is the ranking major in the Medical Department, and within a few months will, by operation of law, become lieutenant-colonel. I ask that the President be authorized to appoint him assistant surgeon-general with the rank ,l a i of colonel, and to appoint Major Gorgas deputy surgeon-general, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and that the respective numbers in those grades in the Medical Department be increased accordingly during the period for which they hold those oflicesfi

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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

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Vv VALUE OF DR. REEDS WORK. Popular appreciation of the value of the work mission has been singularly slow and imperfect. person in the United States is familiar with the name and work of a dis-s tinguished Austrian surgeon who has recently demonstrated in this country an operation for the cure of a rather rare deformity in children, only a small fraction of them know anything of Walter Reed, the conqueror of the ll Yellow Plague? and yet, distinguished men have not been silent in regard to him. General Leonard W ood said in a recent address at a memorial meeting of sciene tilic men held in honor of his memory in Washington, I know of no other man on this side of the world who has done so much for humanity as Dr. Reed. His discovery results in the saving of more lives annually than were lost in the Cuban war, and saves the commercial interests of the world a greater financial loss each year than the cost of the Cuban war. He came to Cuba at a time when one- third of the officers of my staff died of yellow fever, and we were discouraged at the failure of our efforts to control this disease. In the months when the disease was ordinarily worst the disease was checked and driven from Havana. of the Yellow Fever Com- While nearly every educated with conditions of tropical countries. Hereafter ' yellow fever to gain such headway that quarantine the Potomac to the mouth of the Rio Grande. fully the value of Dr. Reedls services. controlling mind in this Future generations will appreciate His was the originating, directing, and work, and the others were assistants only , In a letter dated November 24th, General Wood said: II To Major Reed belongs the honor of having led in the greatest medical work of modern times, and the results he accomplished will live for all time? Professor VVilliam' H. Weleh, of Johns Secretary of War: II Dr. Reed'is researches in yellow fever are. by far the most important contribution to science which has ever come from an Army surgeon. In my judgment they are the most valuable contributions to medicine and public hygiene which have ever been made in this country, with the exception of the discovery of anesthesia. They have led and will lead to the saving of untold thousands of lives. I am in a position to know that the credit for the original ideas embodied in this work belongs wholly to Major Reed. Such work if done in Europe would receive substantial recognition from the Government? He was last year given the degree of LL. D. by the University of and the degree of M. A. by Harvard University. used by President Eliot was: Hopkins, said in a letter to the Michigan, In conferring, the language Walter Reed, graduate of medicine of the Uni- ' , the Army Surgeon who planned and directed in Cuba the