title: William Crawford Gorgas. He set the standard of military preventive medicine.
abstract: William C. Gorgas spent the first twenty years of his career dedicated to the daily tasks of rural patient care. When assigned to Havana, his practicable application of Walter Reed's demonstration of Yellow Fever transmission resulted in the elimination of Yellow Fever within eight months. His perseverance in applying principles of arthropod born disease control allowed the completion of the Panama Canal. He developed the Sanitation Corps, presently Army Environmental Health Services, and initiated emphasis on preventive medicine for the soldier. He served as the Surgeon General of the Army during World War I, when for the first time in our history fewer soldiers died from disease than from combat casualties.
authors.affiliation: Tripler Army Medical Center, Department of Preventive Medicine Service, Hawaii 96859-5000, USA.
authors.forename: T M
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Cashman
mesh_terms: D004782:Environmental Health / Q000266:history*; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D008288:Malaria / Q000266:history / Q000517:prevention & control; D008887:Military Medicine / Q000266:history*; D010176:Panama; D011315:Preventive Medicine / Q000266:history*; D014481:United States; D015004:Yellow Fever / Q000266:history / Q000517:prevention & control