408 WALTER REED 



In the ten years subsequent to this date, in the intervals of his 

 routine duties and others which came to him as a medical offi- 

 cer, such as member of examining boards, teaching, investi- 

 gation of numerous sanitary questions, and making sanitary 

 inspections, he w^as able, by immense industry, to obtain a posi- 

 tion in the scientific world such as comes to few of those who 

 are able to devote a lifetime exclusively to such pursuits. 



Of the numerous monographs which show his scientific work 

 during this time, all are creditable ; nor do any show marks of 

 carelessness or haste, in spite of the limited time which he had 

 at his disposal. 



In 1898, when typhoid fever prevailed so extensively in the 

 camps of the volunteer armies of the United States, Major Reed 

 was put at the head of a commission to study the causation and 

 methods of spread of that disease. This investigation, which 

 covered a period of more than a year, was remarkable for the 

 patience and skill with which a vast number of details were 

 assembled and studied, and it marks a great advance in our 

 knowledge of this widespread disease. Among the points of 

 great value brought out were the importance of the common fly 

 as a carrier of infection in camps, and the frequency with which 

 the contagion of typhoid fever is in camp life spread from man 

 to man by immediate contact with each other or with bedding, 

 tents, and implements which have become infected. 



The first work by Major Reed bearing on the causation of 

 yellow fever was in 1899-1900, when he overthrew the claim of 

 the distinguished bacteriologist, Sanarelli, to have discovered 

 the bacillus of yellow fever, by his demonstration that the 

 Bacillus ictcroides (Sanarelli) was an organism widely dissemi- 

 nated in this country and having no causative relation to that 

 disease. He began the special work with which his name will 

 always be inseparably associated as one of the benefactors of 

 mankind in June, 1900, when he went to Cuba as president of 

 a commission to study the infectious diseases of Cuba, with 

 special reference to yellow fever. His investigations resulted 

 in the demonstration that in yellow fever the specific infectious 

 agent is present in the blood of those suffering from the disease 

 and that the usual, and probably only, method of transmission 



