1851-1902
Army Surgeon and Pathologist

Early Career.

Born in Belroi, Virginia, on 13 September 1851, Walter Reed was the son of Methodist minister Lemuel S. Reed and his wife, Pharaba. Reed received his first medical degree from the University of Virginia in 1869 and a second degree from Bellevue Hospital Medical College in New York City the following year. After a twoyear internship in Brooklyn, he served in two public health posts in New York City until 1875. In that year he joined the U.S. Army Medical Corps and rotated through various U.S. posts — including Fort Apache, Arizona — until being named to the just-opened Army Medical School's faculty in 1893. Prior to this assignment, Reed spent two years studying pathology under the famed Dr. William Welch at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Much of this work involved laboratory research on hog cholera and typhoid fever. His studies...