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DR WILLIAM C GORGAS 1893 AUTOGRAPHED LETTER SIGNED
SURGEON GENERAL OF YELLOW FEVER, PANAMA CANAL FAME
Nice 3-page letter handwritten and signed in dark ink on lined paper 5 x 8”. Good condtion as shown in scan. Gorgas writes in 1890 from Fort Reno, OK to a fellow army officer William N. Blow.
William Crawford Gorgas, doctor and Surgeon General of the United States Army, is known throughout the world as the conqueror of the mosquito and the malaria and yellow fever it transmits. His pioneer efforts in halting an epidemic of yellow fever enabled the United States to complete the Panama Canal after earlier attempts had fallen before the onslaught of the treacherous insect.
A full transcription of Gorgas’ letter to Blow follows:
“Fort Reno, Oklahoma
June 15th, 1890
My Dear Blow,
I see by the Journal that efficient & accomplished young officer, Lt. Blow has been appointed regimental adjutant & I wish to congratulate him.
How do you manage with your bald pate to be called young? I think that the editor must have met Mrs. Blow & concluded that the husband of so youthful looking a wife must deserve the adjective young. I have so many white hairs myself that I am getting kind of touchy on the subject. But, I am very glad to hear of your promotion. I had hope that when your four years is up you will be so near your captaincy that you will not mind the come down.
Remember me to Davis, Lloyd, Parton, William, and all my old comrades. Mrs. Gorgas joins me in kindest regards to you & yours.
Very sincerely your friend
W. C. Gorgas”
“William Crawford Gorgas was born October 3, 1854, near Mobile, Alabama. His father, Josiah Gorgas, was an 1841 graduate of the United States Military Academy. During the Civil War Josiah Gorgas joined the Confederate Army and rose to the rank of brigadier general and Chief of Ordnance.
William Gorgas joined the U.S. Army in 1880 as an assistant surgeon. Throughout the 1880s and 1890s Gorgas served with little notoriety in various posts around the United States, including North Dakota, Texas, and Florida. While at Fort Brown, Texas (1882-84), he met Marie Cook Doughty, whom he married in 1885 [Gorgas mentions his wife in this ALS written five years after his marriage]. At Fort Brown, Gorgas also contracted and survived yellow fever. Since his recovery from that illness made him immune to its effects, Gorgas was often ordered to work in areas where yellow fever was a known hazard. Consequently he was stationed at Fort Barrancas, on Pensacola Bay, Florida, for a number of years, honing his skills and knowledge of the disease. During the Spanish-American War the Army gave Gorgas the command of a hospital in Cuba, where there was a yellow fever outbreak. A year later, in 1899, Gorgas was appointed chief sanitary officer of Havana, Cuba, where he eradicated yellow fever by controlling the mosquito population.
Cuban physician Carlos Juan Finlay discovered the role mosquitoes play in transmitting disease; it was Gorgas' task to prevent the insect from playing that role. His first efforts against yellow fever were in Havana, where more than 500 deaths to the disease had been counted in each of the preceding ten years. Gorgas assumed the herculean task of listing, inspecting, and controlling every possible breeding place in the city. Within months the city was clear of yellow fever and it was 18 years before another yellow fever death occurred. In the Canal Zone, Gorgas successfully maintained a zone in which mosquitoes could not exist around the canal workers as they progressed across the narrow Isthmus of Panama.
A lesser man than Gorgas might have failed before the opposition he encountered even after the success at Havana gained world-wide publicity and acclaim. United States officials in the Canal Zone refused to believe in Gorgas. They pigeon-holed his requests for equipment, refused him authority to deal with the people, discredited him to higher authorities and frequently clamored for his dismissal. Only the faith and authority placed in General Gorgas by President Theodore Roosevelt enabled him to complete his task.
As a result of his success in Cuba, Gorgas was reassigned to Washington, D.C., in 1902 to develop sanitation plans for the proposed work on the Panama Canal. Gorgas arrived in Panama in 1904 and began efforts to eradicate disease in the Canal Zone. Despite internal opposition to his work, Gorgas managed to eradicate yellow fever from the Canal Zone and created a sanitary environment for workers and residents. By this time, Gorgas received international recognition for his skills and knowledge of sanitation and disease prevention, acting as consultant to other countries including South Africa.
He was appointed Surgeon General of the Army on January 16, 1914, and promoted to the rank of major general. Gorgas served in this capacity during World War I and retired on October 3, 1918. He continued his work on disease prevention and served on the International Health Board, which took him to England in 1920. While there he suffered a stroke and died on July 3, 1920. After a funeral at St. Paul’s Cathedral, Gorgas’ body was returned to the United States and buried in Arlington National Cemetery.”
William Nivison Blow, Jr., was an 1876 graduate of the Virginia Military Institute. He was appointed in 1898 a major of the 4th Virginia Volunteer Infantry, with which he served in Cuba till Jan. 11 1900. After the Spanish American War he served in both China and the Philippines. In 1907, he died in Norfolk, VA.
Price= $595.00
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