Yes, *that* Walter Reed. This marker points out that a famous physician lived here and also married a woman from here in Murfreesboro.
The marker has the same text on both sides. It reads, "Head of U.S. Yellow Fever Commission in Cuba, 1900-01. Lived here as a young man and married Emily Lawrence of this town."
Walter Reed, born in Virginia in 1851, spent part of his early life in Murfreesboro, North Carolina, where his father served as a Methodist pastor. Reed entered the University of Virginia at just fifteen and graduated from its medical school at seventeen, later earning a second degree from Bellevue Hospital Medical College in New York. After working in public health in Brooklyn, he joined the U.S. Army Medical Corps in 1875, eventually rising to prominence as a pioneering bacteriologist.
During the Spanish-American War, Reed led the fourth U.S. Army Yellow Fever Commission in Cuba, where he conducted groundbreaking experiments that proved mosquitoes transmitted yellow fever. His work was notable not only for its scientific impact but also for introducing informed consent in human experimentation. Reed's findings revolutionized public health and disease control in tropical regions.
He died in 1902 from complications of appendicitis and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. His legacy lives on through the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the National Museum of Health and Medicine, institutions that honor his contributions to medicine and public health.
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