American Association of Physicians, meeting in Washington in July,"49[1] and
before the Society of American Bacteriologists, meeting in Chicago at the end of the year. 50[2] In addition, he published in the Journal of Hygiene, a British periodical, a summary article of recent researches concerning the etiology, propagation, and prevention of yellow fever by the United States Army Commission. 51[3]
In these various papers and publications, he outlined in detail the experimental procedures followed and the results obtained, demonstrating to all who heard and read that both in its occurrences and its nonoccurrences at Camp Lazear, "yellow fever strictly obeyed the behests of the experimenters."
Dr. Reed resumed his teaching, while continuing as Curator of the Medical Museum, but by the fall of 1902, it became evident that his strength was failing. In November, he suffered an attack which was diagnosed as appendicitis. On the 17th, at the Army General Hospital at Washington Barracks, he under-went an operation for removal of a ruptured appendix. "Major Reed received the accepted treatment" of that period, according to Dr. Charles Stanley White, and "was in most competent hands." 52[4] Everything was done for him that medical experience dictated and the personal solicitude of affectionate association could suggest— but on 22 November 1902, Walter Reed, who "gave to man control over that dreadful scourge, Yellow Fever," 53[5] being but 51 years of age, died, to live among the medical immortals.
- ↑ 49 Reed, W.. Carroll, J., and Agramonte, A.: Experimental Yellow Fever. American Medicine. Philadelphia 2: 15-23, 6 July 1901.
- ↑ 50 Reed, W., and Carroll. J.: The Etiology of Yellow Fever. A Supplemental Note. American Medicine, Philadelphia 3: 301-305, 22 February 1902.
- ↑ 51 Reed, Journal of Hygiene, 2 (1902), pp. 101-110.
- ↑ 52 White Dr. Charles Stanley: The Last Illness of Major Walter Reed. Medical Annals of the District of Columbia '24: 396-398, August 1955. The surgeon in charge was Maj. William Cline Borden assisted by Lieutenants Ford and Conner, with Dr. White as anesthesiologist. Others in attendance were: Surgeon General O'Reilly, Maj. J. R. Kean, Capt F. P. Reynolds, and Doctors Wallace Neff and Bovee. Dr. Borden, who was Reed's devoted friend, was more than any other one individual responsible for the creation of the Army Medical Center which bears the name of Walter Reed-a project "known to his contemporaries as "Borden's dream'." In Ramsey, Herbert P.: Washington Medical Institutions: Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Medical Annals of the District of Columbia 28: 225-231. April 1959.
- ↑ 53 (1) The quotation is from the citation accompanying the award of an honorary M.A. degree by Harvard University in 1902. (2) In 1911 the U.S. Senate published Document 822. 61st Congress, 3d session, under the title "Yellow Fever." The document includes tributes to Reed and his work among them the declaration of President Theodore Roosevelt that Reed left "mankind his debtor and the statement of Gen. Leonard Wood that "his was the originating, dieting, and controlling mind in this work • * *" The document also reprints seven of Reed's papers and addresses on yellow fever and three by Carroll on the same subject, together with cop.es of reports of the practical application of the discoveries of the Yellow Fever Board, by Col. Valery Havard, Chief Sanitary Officer of the Department of Cuba, and by Maj. W. C. Gorgas, Chief Sanitary Officer in Havana.
