Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 2.djvu/102

 LAWSON

S6

LAZEAR

and promoted to surf:;eoncy of the sixth Infantry May 21, 1S13. Upon the re- duction of the army in 1S15, retained in the service as surgeon of the seventh Infantry. Upon reorganization of the medical department, 1S21, army surgeon senior in grade and so continuing un- til his promotion as surgeon-general in 1S3G.

His character was marked not only by administrative abihty but by an intrepid bravery which led to his ap- pointment as lieutenant-colonel of a regiment of Louisiana volunteers and to his assignment to the organization and command of a battalion of New York and Pennsylvania volunteers in the Seminole war. He served in every war in which his country was engaged up to his death, excepting the Black Hawk one. When appointed surgeon- general he was acting as medical director of the troops from the north designed for service in the Florida War, so that he did not arrive in Washington until six months after his appointment.

He secured for army medical officers actual military rank, but without com- mand, and enunciated the principle that such officers should be allowed to engage in private practice at their stations when it could be done with- out interfering with military duty. In 1850 he inaugurated the custom of sending delegates from the army to the American Medical Association, and in 1856 secured an increase of the commissioned medical force, the en- listment of hospital stewards as such, and the authorization of extra duty- pay for soldiers detailed for hospital service. He accompanied Gen. Win- field Scott on his Mexican campaign and received the brevet of brigadier- general for gallantry.

A man of commanding character, he exerted a most effective and benefi- cient influence in favor of his depart- ment. While on a trip for rest and recreation he died of apoplexy at Norfolk, Virginia, May 15, 1861.

J. E. P.

Pilclior, Jainca lOvoIyn, Journal of the Asso- ciation of Military Surgeons of the United States, vol. xiv, 1904 (port.). The Surgeon-Generals of the United States Army, Carlisle, Pa., 1905 (port.).

Lazear, Jesse William (1866-1900).

Jesse William Lazear, of the United States Army Yellow Fever Commission and one who laid down his life in the investigation, was born in Balti- more on May 2, 1886. His early ed- ucation was received at Trinity Hall, a private school in Pennsylvania. From there he went to the Johns Hopkins University, graduating in 1889; he studied medicine at the University of Columbia and after graduation served for two years at Bellevue Hospital. He then studied for a year in Europe, part of his time being passed at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. On his re- turn he was appointed bacteriologist to the medical staff of the Johns Hop- kins Hospital and also assistant in clinical microscopy in the University.

He displayed brilliant promise in research. It was he who first succeed- ed in isolating the diplococcus of Neisser in pure culture in the circulating blood in a case of ulcerative endocarditis, and he was the first person in this country to confirm and elaborate the studies of Romanovsky and others concerning the intimate structure of the hematozoa of malaria.

In 1900 when the United States Army Yellow Fever Commission was appointed he was made a member and reached Cuba several months be- fore his colleagues. This time he spent in investigating the pathological and bacteriological side of the disease, so that when the commission met he was able to say with confidence that cultures and blood examinations promised noth- ing of special importance.

He, as well as the other members of the commission, believed in the theory of the transmission of the disease by means of the mosquito. It was, therefore, with a full knowledge of his danger that he allowed a mosquito