Military Medical Entomology During the Mexican-American and First World Wars: A Coming of Age

Abstract

An inchoate appreciation for the profound impacts poor field sanitation exacted on troop strength and morale during the Civil War led to the establishment of the US Sanitary Commission in 1861. Even so, a full realization of the critical role sanitation and insect control play in the prevention of communicable diseases had to await the birth of medical entomology brought about by the brilliant discoveries of pioneers in tropical medicine decades later. Indeed, the Spanish-American War reemphasized that we had not learned our lessons in exposing immunologically naive troops to exotic diseases and those caused by poor sanitation, and enormous numbers of communicable disease casualties were the predictable results.

Presented at the DOD Symposium "Evolution of Military Medical Entomology" held in Reno, NV on 16 November 2008. Published in Proceedings of the DOD Symposium "Evolution of Military Medical Entomology", p14-22, November 2008. Annual Meeting of the Entomological Society of America. The original document contains color images. This article is from ADA506261 Proceedings of the DOD Symposium on Evolution of Military Medical Entomology