He was a doctor, teacher, scientist, and a gentle and courteous man. His work against typhoid and especially against yellow fever immortalized him. He left an enduring legacy for all people: relief from the fear, pain and sorrow these diseases indiscriminately caused. But in 1902, at the age of 51, he died of complications following an appendectomy. For scientific medicine, for his corps, and for the medical profession to which he gave so much, his loss was a severe blow.

He was Major Walter Reed, a physician in uniform. His priceless gift to those who worked with him and who would follow him was the example he set by his commitment to the eradication of human suffering. In his chosen field – medicine – his life was devoted, without compromise, to the pursuit of excellence.

Walter Reed was born in Gloucester County, Va., in September 1851. As a child, he demonstrated his love of knowledge and sense of honor – traits that marked him throughout his lifetime. The young Walter Reed received special permission to attend the University of Virginia in 1867. He was 16, well below the usual age of admission to the Charlottesville institution, but an exception was made because he would be attending with his older brothers.

Money was short in those days following the Civil War, and with three brothers in school at the same time, it was going to be difficult. He decided to seek a medical degree because it was quicker. In 1869, he amazed the university faculty by passing his examinations third in his class. He received his Doctor of Medicine degree at the age of 17 and remains the youngest person ever to graduate from the University of Virginia Medical School. He earned a second medical degree at Bellevue Hospital Medical College, N.Y., in 1870 but did not receive it until he turned 21.

In 1876, a short time after he had been commissioned a first lieutenant in the Army Medical Corps, the young doctor married Emilie Blackwell Lawrence of Murfreesboro, N.C.

His first assignment, to Fort Lowell, Ariz., marked the beginning of 18 years of garrison duty. At Lowell, Dr. Reed was the camp’s only physician. He also served as the family doctor to the area’s residents, delivering babies, treating young and old, setting bones and tending patients with diphtheria, typhoid and other diseases. He did so much for Native Americans in the territory that he became known as the “Indian doctor.“

A tour of duty in Baltimore during the early 1880s gave him the chance to attend lectures at Johns Hopkins University where he first became acquainted with the new science of bacteriology.

Almost a decade later, after further assignments in the south and west, he was able to study in Baltimore again. His training there left him well suited to make the best of any opportunity that could add to his experience and training in medical research.

He left in 1891 for his last assignment in the American West. He received orders for Washington, D.C., two years later to become professor of bacteriology in the Army Medical School (now the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research). He was promoted to full surgeon with the rank of major.

The Spanish-American War put Reed in a position to study the origin of typhoid fever epidemics among the volunteer troops. His yearlong investigation added greatly to the store of scientific knowledge needed to fight this dangerous disease.

But there was another threat to the health of American Soldiers on occupation duty in Cuba after the war. Yellow fever had long been a challenge to medical research and a scourge in the Caribbean.

In 1900, a board of four medical officers was named to investigate infectious diseases, especially yellow fever in Cuba. Reed, heading the team, proceeded to Cuba to begin a great medical adventure.

Following extensive research, and determining that the fever-producing germ could not be found, Walter Reed and his coworkers decided to attempt to discover how the disease was spread.

Exhausting experiments followed. Some men volunteered to wear and sleep in clothes and sheets contaminated by patients with yellow fever. Others volunteered to be bitten by mosquitoes after the mosquitoes had bitten patients with well-marked cases of yellow fever. By the end of 1900, the experiments in Cuba had left no grounds for doubt that mosquitoes were the carriers of yellow fever.

Walter Reed passed sentence on the mosquito with these words: ‘‘The spread of yellow fever can be most effectively controlled by measures directed to the destruction of the mosquitoes and the protection of the sick against these insects.”

The Yellow Fever Board completed its work in 1901. Maj. Reed returned to Washington and resumed his regular duties as curator of the Army Medical Museum, which is now the National Museum of Health and Medicine, and to teaching at the Army Medical School and at Columbian College, which is now George Washington University.

It was not until after his death in 1902 that the United States began to appreciate the greatness of what he had done. Thus, in 1909, his comrades in the Army Medical Corps named this great institution for him.