William C. Gorgas

Major General William Crawford Gorgas (October 3, 1854, in Mobile, Alabama -- July 3, 1920, in London) was a United States physician and 22nd Surgeon General of the U.S. Army (1914-18). He is best known for his work in abating the transmission of yellow fever and malaria by controlling the mosquitoes that carry them at a time when he met with considerable skepticism and opposition to such measures.

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Biography

Born at Toulminville, Alabama, Gorgas was the first of six children of Pennsylvania-born Confederate general Josiah Gorgas and Amelia Gayle Gorgas, daughter of Alabama governor John Gayle.

After training at Bellvue Hospital Medical College in New York City, Dr. Gorgas was appointed to the US Army Medical Corps in June 1880. Prior to appointment as Chief Sanitary Officer for the Army (1898), Gorgas was assigned to three posts -- Fort Clark, Fort Duncan, and Fort Brown -- in Texas . While at the last (1882-84), he met Marie Cook Doughty, whom he married in 1885.

Gorgas was made Surgeon General of the Army in 1914, in which position he was able to capitalize on the momentous work of another Army doctor, Major Walter Reed, who had himself capitalized on insights of a Cuban doctor, Carlos Finlay, to prove the mosquito transmission of yellow fever. As such, Gorgas won international fame battling the illness -- then the scourge of tropical and sub-tropical climates -- first in Florida, later in Havana, Cuba and finally at the Panama Canal. He did this by implementing far-reaching sanitatary programs including the draining of ponds and swamps. It is generally considered that these measures were instrumental in permitting the construction of the Panama Canal, as they significantly prevented illness due to yellow fever and malaria (which had also been shown to be transmitted by mosquitoes in 1898) among the thousands of workers involved in the building project.

Gorgas received a knighthood from King George V at the Queen Alexandra Military Hospital in the United Kingdom shortly before his death there on July 3, 1920. He was given a special funeral in St. Paul's Cathedral, with the honors of a British major general. His body was later returned to the US and he was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Legacy

• The Gorgas Memorial Institute of Tropical and Preventive Medicine, Incorporated (GMITP), which operated the Gorgas Laboratories in Panama, was founded in 1921 and was named after Dr. Gorgas. With the loss of congressional funding in 1990, the GMITP was closed. The Institute was moved to the University of Alabama in 1992 and carries on the tradition of research, service and training in tropical medicine.

• Gorgas Hospital was a U.S. Army hospital in Panama named for Dr. Gorgas from 1928. Now in Panamanian hands, it is home to the Instituto Oncologico Nacional, Panama's Ministry of Health and its Supreme Court.

• In 1953 William C. Gorgas was inducted in the Alabama Hall of Fame.

• Gorgas Hall, located on the campus of The University of Alabama, is named in honor of his mother, Amelia Gayle Gorgas. The University of Texas Brownsville also has a Gorgas Hall in his honor. The university's campus is located on the grounds of the former Fort Brown.

• William Crawford Gorgas Electric Generating Plant, Located along the Black Warrior River near Parrish. Total nameplate generating capacity - 1,221,250 kW: Generating units - 5; Type of fuel -

References

• Ashburn, P.M., History of the Medical Department of the U.S. Army, 1929.
• Gibson, John M., Physician to the World: The Life of General William C. Gorgas, Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1950.
• Gorgas, Marie and Burton J. Hendrick, William Crawford Gorgas: His Life and Work, New York: Doubleday, 1924.
• Phalen, James M., "Chiefs of the Medical Department, U.S. Army 1775-1940, Biographical Sketches," Army Medical Bulletin, No. 52, April 1940, pp. 88-93.
• Endorsements, Resolutions and other Data in Behalf of the Nomination of Dr. William Crawford Gorgas for Election to the New York Hall of Fame for Great Americans, 2 vols., Birmingham: Gorgas Hall of Fame Committee, 1950.

Obituaries:

• Ireland, M. W., Science, July 16, 1920
• Martin, F.H., Surg. Gyn. Obst., Oct. 1923
• Noble, R.E. Am. J. Pub. Health, March 1921
• Siler, J.F., Am. J. Trop. M., March 1922