Army Maj. (Dr.) Walter Reed played a pivotal role in investigating public health diseases, earning him a top spot among military medicine’s most important heroes. Walter Reed National Military Medical CenterWalter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, bears his name and is one of the nation's largest and most prominent military hospitals.
WRNMMC is world-renownedWalter Reed National Military Hospital as a preeminent patient care facility with superior healthcare accreditation ratings, multiple centers of excellence, award-winning medical research, and a patient and family centered care approach. It’s also called the “Presidents’ Hospital” for its unequaled care of our nation’s chief executives since 1942.
The Walter Reed Army Institute of ResearchWalter Reed Army Institute of Research, founded in 1893WRAIR history, is in nearby Silver Spring, Maryland. WRAIR's mission and legacymission and legacy ensures warfighters are protected from diseases that historically have killed more service members than battle injuries.
A pioneer rises to prominence
Reed’s most important work was discovering the source of two epidemic diseases: typhoidtyphoid and yellow feverhttps://www.cdc.gov/yellow-fever/index.html.
Reed and a U.S. Army team first worked at U.S. military training grounds and encampments where typhoid led to constant deaths among recruits. They found the source (contaminated water), “implicated filth and flies in transmission of typhoid fever, and further developed the concept of asymptomatic carriersArticle,” according to a September 2022 article for the National Museum of Health and MedicineNational Museum of Health and Medicine by physician John Pierce, a retired U.S. Army colonel.
The team was “instrumental in implementing measures to clean up bases and training camps, which resulted in a dramatic drop in the number of typhoid cases,” Pierce wrote.
Yellow fever ravaged civilians in cities such as New Orleans, American Soldier encampments, and training facilities in the South and up the Atlantic seaboard to Boston, according to an historical study published online Feb. 3, 2013, in the American Journal of Public Health. Yellow fever caused some 150,000 deaths from the 1690s until 1905, the article found.
Diving into research to find the source of yellow fever, Reed’s team discovered the disease also was caused by mosquitoesArticle. They did this by conducting experiments using volunteers, proving a common mosquito transmitted yellow fever from human to human, the source wasn’t contaminated clothing or bedding, and the germ was the first known human viral disease, Pierce wrote.
Continuing to serve science, an untimely death
Working with many pioneers of microbiology, bacteriology, and pathology, Reed was one of the few U.S. Army doctors who was skilled in all three disciplines. He had the good fortune to work in the germ-based era of disease theory and when microscopes came to early prominence.
Reed’s discoveries led to another major U.S. accomplishment — the completion of the Panama Canal between 1904 and 1914, as detailed in the 2009 U.S. Army book, The Panama Canal, An Army EnterpriseThe Panama Canal, An Army Enterprise. U.S. disease specialists by then knew how to control the spread of mosquitoes, leading to reduced burden of disease and eventual completion.
In 1902, Reed died at age 51 due to infection from an emergency appendectomy. The first Walter Reed General Hospital opened in 1909.
Treating the wounded of wars past and present
HistoryArticle of the ongoing evolution of the top military hospital tells a story of military medicine excellence, built on the foundation from its founder.
The general hospital's capacity grew from 80 patient beds to 2,500 in months during America’s involvement in World War I. A 1923 War Department order combined the hospital and the medical center into the Army Medical Center. During World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, the facility treated “hundreds of thousands of injured American Soldiers,” according to WRNMMC historyWRNMMC history. It was renamed Walter Reed Army Medical Center in 1951 and in 1978, the facility moved to a new building and celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2009.
In the Gulf War era, the hospital was one of the primary military medical wound treatment and recovery acute care sites. For example, the U.S. Army medically evacuated 294 trauma patients from Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom to WRAMC between March 1 and July 3, 2003, according to a journal article from June 25, 2005. Many more thousands of the wounded came to WRAMC during the counterinsurgency, beginning in January 2007 and ending when combat operations ceased on Dec.15, 2011.
The WRAMC facility closed Aug. 27, 2011. The Base Realignment and Closure Commission announced in 2005 it would combine the center with the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda. In September 2011, the newly named Walter Reed National Military Medical Center opened its doors.
Leapfrog “A” rating for safety, innovation continues
Attesting to its continuous emphasis on high-quality and high-reliability care, WRNMMC received an “A” Leapfrog Hospital Safety GradeArticle for Spring 2026 along with 14 other military hospitals and clinicsArticle.
Leapfrog also scored WRNMMC as one of three military hospitals earning consecutive “A” grades for the past five safety evaluations, which are conducted twice yearly and are publicly availableInfo about Safety evaluations.
Since its establishment 126 years ago, Walter Reed has remained a leader in medical innovation and cooperation within the Military Health SystemMilitary Health System and with civilian and institutional partners. Selected recent achievements include:
A gravesite marker in Arlington National Cemetery recognizes the impact of hospital’s namesake. It reads simply: “He gave to man control over that dreadful scourge yellow fever.” Reed’s discoveries also led to Congress’s creation of the Walter Reed Medal, awarded every three years for achievements in tropical disease medicine.
Just as Reed revolutionized research in epidemic diseases — saving many lives along the way — WRNMMC honors his legacy with world-class warfighter care and a spirit of scientific discovery.