Walter Wyman
Encyclopedia
Walter Wyman was an American physician and soldier. He was appointed the third Surgeon General of the United States
from 1891 until his death in 1911.
. He obtained his A.B. degree
from Amherst College
in Massachusetts
in 1870 and then graduated in 1873 from the St. Louis Medical College
(now Washington University School of Medicine
)
in 1876 as an Assistant Surgeon
. He was promoted to Surgeon
the following year, and served successively in the marine hospitals at St. Louis, Cincinnati, Baltimore
, and New York
. While he was in charge of the marine hospital in Staten Island
, New York
, the Hygienic Laboratory (forerunner of the National Institutes of Health
) was established there in 1887 by Supervising Surgeon General John B. Hamilton
. Wyman had studied in Europe in 1885, and was well acquainted with the bacteriological investigations of Robert Koch
and others. He fully supported the creation of the Hygienic Laboratory.
In December, 1888, Wyman moved to Washington, D.C.
as Chief of the Quarantine
Division. When Hamilton resigned as Supervising Surgeon General, Wyman was appointed to the position as of June 1, 1891. He was to remain at the helm of the Marine Hospital Service for 20 years.
During Wyman's tenure, the Marine Hospital Service significantly expanded its responsibilities, and in 1902 was renamed the Public Health and Marine Hospital Service. At that time, Wyman's title was also changed from Supervising Surgeon General to just Surgeon General. As a result of immigration legislation passed on March 3, 1891, shortly before Wyman took office, the Marine Hospital Service was assigned responsibility for the medical inspection of arriving immigrations. The largest immigration depot was Ellis Island
in New York, opened in 1892, where Service physicians would inspect thousands of arriving immigrants on busy days. The quarantine activities of the Service were expanded by legislative acts of 1893 and 1906, and maritime quarantine functions were extended to Hawaii
, Cuba
, Puerto Rico
, the Panama Canal
, and the Philippine Islands.
The 1902 act, which changed the name of the Service, also charged the Surgeon General with convening a conference of state health authorities at least on an annual basis, and directed him to prepare and distribute to state health officers forms for the uniform compilation of vital statistics. This statistical information was published in the Service's journal, Public Health Reports. The 1902 law also expanded the Hygienic Laboratory, which Wyman had moved to Washington, D.C. in 1891. Under Wyman's administration, the Laboratory significantly increased its research activities, including studies on diseases such as hookworm
and Rocky Mountain spotted fever
, and was provided with a new building in 1901. The 1902 Biologics Control Act gave the Laboratory responsibility for the regulation of biological products such as vaccines and antotoxins
.
In the early years of the twentieth century, Surgeon General Wyman found himself in the midst of a controversy over plague in the city of San Francisco. The Service first became involved in the situation in 1900 when PHS physician Joseph J. Kinyoun
, stationed in San Francisco, confirmed by bacteriological analysis that the death of a laborer in the city's Chinatown
section was due to bubonic plague
. Many local officials and business leaders, as well as Chinatown residents, concerned about how fears of plague would effect their lives and businesses, denied the existence of the disease and/or resisted quarantine and immunization efforts. When Wyman attempted to enforce an embargo on interstate travel for California
ns without proper health certificates, the Governor of the state, Henry Gage
, persuaded President McKinley
to lift the travel ban. By 1903, however, the situation had become serious enough that an emergency conference was held in Washington, D.C., and a recommendation was made that all traffic between California and the rest of the country be halted unless Federal authorities were permitted to carry out their eradication campaign. Faced with the threat of a national boycott
, San Francisco officials cooperated with Wyman and the Service, and a successful campaign to eliminate the disease was led by PHS physician Rupert Blue
(who would later serve himself as PHS Surgeon General). The Service under Wyman also cooperated with state and local health authorities in the control of other infectious diseases such as yellow fever
.
Wyman was involved in the creation of the Pan American Sanitary Bureau in 1902. From the time of its organization until 1936, the Surgeons General of the Public Health Service served as the Directors of the Bureau, with Wyman as Director until his death in 1911. Many of Wyman's health policies and principles were adopted by the Bureau. He also played a leading role in the first four Inter-American Sanitary Conferences, acting as President of the first two and attending the next two as the United States Delegate.
Wyman authorized a nationwide study of the prevalence of leprosy
in 1901, and worked to establish a leprosy hospital and laboratory in Hawaii. In 1905, Wyman personally went to Hawaii to select the site of the new facility.
During his tenure as Surgeon General, Wyman was active in professional service in a number of organizations. For example, he served as President of the American Public Health Association in 1902 and as President of the Association of Military Surgeons in 1904.
Wyman continued to serve as Surgeon General until his death in Washington, D.C.
on November 21, 1911.
Surgeon General of the United States
The Surgeon General of the United States is the operational head of the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and thus the leading spokesperson on matters of public health in the federal government...
from 1891 until his death in 1911.
Early years
Wyman was born in St. Louis, MissouriSt. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
. He obtained his A.B. degree
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
from Amherst College
Amherst College
Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009...
in Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
in 1870 and then graduated in 1873 from the St. Louis Medical College
Washington University School of Medicine
Washington University School of Medicine , located in St. Louis, Missouri, is one of the graduate schools of Washington University in St. Louis. One of the top medical schools in the United States, it is currently ranked 4th for research according to U.S. News and World Report and has been listed...
(now Washington University School of Medicine
Washington University School of Medicine
Washington University School of Medicine , located in St. Louis, Missouri, is one of the graduate schools of Washington University in St. Louis. One of the top medical schools in the United States, it is currently ranked 4th for research according to U.S. News and World Report and has been listed...
)
Career
Wyman served as a physician at the city hospital in St. Louis for 2 years and then engaged in private practice for another year before joining the Marine Hospital ServiceMarine Hospital Service
The Marine-Hospital Service was an organization of Marine Hospitals dedicated to the care of ill and disabled seamen in the U.S. Merchant Marine, U.S. Coast Guard and other federal beneficiaries....
in 1876 as an Assistant Surgeon
First assistant
A surgeon's assistant is a medical or allied health practitioner that provides aide in exposure, hemostasis, and visualization of anatomic structures during the course of a surgical operation...
. He was promoted to Surgeon
Surgery
Surgery is an ancient medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a patient to investigate and/or treat a pathological condition such as disease or injury, or to help improve bodily function or appearance.An act of performing surgery may be called a surgical...
the following year, and served successively in the marine hospitals at St. Louis, Cincinnati, Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
, and New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. While he was in charge of the marine hospital in Staten Island
Staten Island
Staten Island is a borough of New York City, New York, United States, located in the southwest part of the city. Staten Island is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull, and from the rest of New York by New York Bay...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, the Hygienic Laboratory (forerunner of the National Institutes of Health
National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health are an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and are the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research. Its science and engineering counterpart is the National Science Foundation...
) was established there in 1887 by Supervising Surgeon General John B. Hamilton
John B. Hamilton
John B. Hamilton was an American physician and soldier. He was appointed the second Surgeon General of the United States from 1879 to 1891.-Early years:...
. Wyman had studied in Europe in 1885, and was well acquainted with the bacteriological investigations of Robert Koch
Robert Koch
Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch was a German physician. He became famous for isolating Bacillus anthracis , the Tuberculosis bacillus and the Vibrio cholerae and for his development of Koch's postulates....
and others. He fully supported the creation of the Hygienic Laboratory.
In December, 1888, Wyman moved to Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
as Chief of the Quarantine
Quarantine
Quarantine is compulsory isolation, typically to contain the spread of something considered dangerous, often but not always disease. The word comes from the Italian quarantena, meaning forty-day period....
Division. When Hamilton resigned as Supervising Surgeon General, Wyman was appointed to the position as of June 1, 1891. He was to remain at the helm of the Marine Hospital Service for 20 years.
During Wyman's tenure, the Marine Hospital Service significantly expanded its responsibilities, and in 1902 was renamed the Public Health and Marine Hospital Service. At that time, Wyman's title was also changed from Supervising Surgeon General to just Surgeon General. As a result of immigration legislation passed on March 3, 1891, shortly before Wyman took office, the Marine Hospital Service was assigned responsibility for the medical inspection of arriving immigrations. The largest immigration depot was Ellis Island
Ellis Island
Ellis Island in New York Harbor was the gateway for millions of immigrants to the United States. It was the nation's busiest immigrant inspection station from 1892 until 1954. The island was greatly expanded with landfill between 1892 and 1934. Before that, the much smaller original island was the...
in New York, opened in 1892, where Service physicians would inspect thousands of arriving immigrants on busy days. The quarantine activities of the Service were expanded by legislative acts of 1893 and 1906, and maritime quarantine functions were extended to Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
, Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
, Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...
, the Panama Canal
Panama Canal
The Panama Canal is a ship canal in Panama that joins the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean and is a key conduit for international maritime trade. Built from 1904 to 1914, the canal has seen annual traffic rise from about 1,000 ships early on to 14,702 vessels measuring a total of 309.6...
, and the Philippine Islands.
The 1902 act, which changed the name of the Service, also charged the Surgeon General with convening a conference of state health authorities at least on an annual basis, and directed him to prepare and distribute to state health officers forms for the uniform compilation of vital statistics. This statistical information was published in the Service's journal, Public Health Reports. The 1902 law also expanded the Hygienic Laboratory, which Wyman had moved to Washington, D.C. in 1891. Under Wyman's administration, the Laboratory significantly increased its research activities, including studies on diseases such as hookworm
Hookworm
The hookworm is a parasitic nematode that lives in the small intestine of its host, which may be a mammal such as a dog, cat, or human. Two species of hookworms commonly infect humans, Ancylostoma duodenale and Necator americanus. A. duodenale predominates in the Middle East, North Africa, India...
and Rocky Mountain spotted fever
Rocky Mountain spotted fever
Rocky Mountain spotted fever is the most lethal and most frequently reported rickettsial illness in the United States. It has been diagnosed throughout the Americas. Some synonyms for Rocky Mountain spotted fever in other countries include “tick typhus,” “Tobia fever” , “São Paulo fever” or “febre...
, and was provided with a new building in 1901. The 1902 Biologics Control Act gave the Laboratory responsibility for the regulation of biological products such as vaccines and antotoxins
Antitoxin
An antitoxin is an antibody with the ability to neutralize a specific toxin. Antitoxins are produced by certain animals, plants, and bacteria. Although they are most effective in neutralizing toxins, they can kill bacteria and other microorganisms. Antitoxins are made within organisms, but can be...
.
In the early years of the twentieth century, Surgeon General Wyman found himself in the midst of a controversy over plague in the city of San Francisco. The Service first became involved in the situation in 1900 when PHS physician Joseph J. Kinyoun
Joseph J. Kinyoun
Joseph James Kinyoun MD was founder and first director 1887-1899 of the United States' Hygienic Laboratory, the predecessor of the National Institutes of Health.- Early life :...
, stationed in San Francisco, confirmed by bacteriological analysis that the death of a laborer in the city's Chinatown
Chinatown
A Chinatown is an ethnic enclave of overseas Chinese people, although it is often generalized to include various Southeast Asian people. Chinatowns exist throughout the world, including East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Americas, Australasia, and Europe. Binondo's Chinatown located in Manila,...
section was due to bubonic plague
Bubonic plague
Plague is a deadly infectious disease that is caused by the enterobacteria Yersinia pestis, named after the French-Swiss bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin. Primarily carried by rodents and spread to humans via fleas, the disease is notorious throughout history, due to the unrivaled scale of death...
. Many local officials and business leaders, as well as Chinatown residents, concerned about how fears of plague would effect their lives and businesses, denied the existence of the disease and/or resisted quarantine and immunization efforts. When Wyman attempted to enforce an embargo on interstate travel for California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
ns without proper health certificates, the Governor of the state, Henry Gage
Henry Gage
Henry Tifft Gage was an American lawyer, politician and diplomat. A Republican, Gage was elected to a single term as the 20th Governor of California from 1899 to 1903. Gage was also the U.S. Minister to Portugal for several months in 1910.-Biography:Gage was born on Christmas Day, 1852 in Geneva,...
, persuaded President McKinley
William McKinley
William McKinley, Jr. was the 25th President of the United States . He is best known for winning fiercely fought elections, while supporting the gold standard and high tariffs; he succeeded in forging a Republican coalition that for the most part dominated national politics until the 1930s...
to lift the travel ban. By 1903, however, the situation had become serious enough that an emergency conference was held in Washington, D.C., and a recommendation was made that all traffic between California and the rest of the country be halted unless Federal authorities were permitted to carry out their eradication campaign. Faced with the threat of a national boycott
Boycott
A boycott is an act of voluntarily abstaining from using, buying, or dealing with a person, organization, or country as an expression of protest, usually for political reasons...
, San Francisco officials cooperated with Wyman and the Service, and a successful campaign to eliminate the disease was led by PHS physician Rupert Blue
Rupert Blue
Rupert Blue was an American physician and soldier. He was appointed the fourth Surgeon General of the United States from 1912 to 1920.-Early years:...
(who would later serve himself as PHS Surgeon General). The Service under Wyman also cooperated with state and local health authorities in the control of other infectious diseases such as yellow fever
Yellow fever
Yellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease. The virus is a 40 to 50 nm enveloped RNA virus with positive sense of the Flaviviridae family....
.
Wyman was involved in the creation of the Pan American Sanitary Bureau in 1902. From the time of its organization until 1936, the Surgeons General of the Public Health Service served as the Directors of the Bureau, with Wyman as Director until his death in 1911. Many of Wyman's health policies and principles were adopted by the Bureau. He also played a leading role in the first four Inter-American Sanitary Conferences, acting as President of the first two and attending the next two as the United States Delegate.
Wyman authorized a nationwide study of the prevalence of leprosy
Leprosy
Leprosy or Hansen's disease is a chronic disease caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium leprae and Mycobacterium lepromatosis. Named after physician Gerhard Armauer Hansen, leprosy is primarily a granulomatous disease of the peripheral nerves and mucosa of the upper respiratory tract; skin lesions...
in 1901, and worked to establish a leprosy hospital and laboratory in Hawaii. In 1905, Wyman personally went to Hawaii to select the site of the new facility.
During his tenure as Surgeon General, Wyman was active in professional service in a number of organizations. For example, he served as President of the American Public Health Association in 1902 and as President of the Association of Military Surgeons in 1904.
Wyman continued to serve as Surgeon General until his death in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
on November 21, 1911.
External links
- Distinguished Officers Biographical Sketch
- Men of Mark in America Biographical Sketch