Brigadier General George Miller Sternberg (June 8, 1838 – November 3, 1915) was a U.S. Army physician who is considered the first American bacteriologist, having written Manual of Bacteriology (1892). After he survived typhoid and yellow fever, Sternberg documented the cause of malaria (1881), discovered the cause of lobar pneumonia (1881), and confirmed the roles of the bacilli of tuberculosis and typhoid fever (1886).

As the 18th U.S. Army Surgeon General, from 1893 to 1902, Sternberg led commissions to control typhoid and yellow fever, along with his subordinate Major Walter Reed. Sternberg also oversaw the establishment of the Army Medical School (1893; now the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research) and of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps (1901). The pioneering German bacteriologist Robert Koch honored Sternberg with the sobriquet, "Father of American Bacteriology".

Biography

Youth and education

thumb|130px|left|The young Dr Sternberg

Sternberg was born at Hartwick Seminary, Otsego County, New York, where he spent most of his childhood. He was the eldest child of Levi Sternberg and Margaret Miller Sternberg. His father was a Lutheran clergyman, was descended from a German family from the Palatinate, which had settled in the Schoharie Valley in the early years of the 18th century. His father later became principal of Hartwick Seminary in Hartwick, New York, where he started his education. His mother, Margaret Levering (Miller) Sternberg, was the daughter of George B. Miller, also a Lutheran clergyman and professor of theology at the seminary, which was a Lutheran school. As an eldest child of a large family and he was given adult responsibilities from an early age. He interrupted his studies at the seminary with a year of work in a bookstore in Cooperstown and three years of teaching in nearby rural schools. During his last year at Hartwick he was an instructor in mathematics, chemistry, and natural philosophy. He was at the same time pursuing the study of medicine with Horace Lathrop of Cooperstown. For his formal medical training he went first to Buffalo, and later to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York (M.D. degree, 1860). After graduation he settled in Elizabeth, New Jersey, to practice, remaining there until the outbreak of the Civil War.

Early career

Junior Army surgeon

On May 28, 1861, he was appointed an Assistant Surgeon in the U.S. Army, and on July 21 of the same year was captured at the First Battle of Bull Run, while serving with General George Sykes' division. He managed to escape and soon joined his command in the defense of Washington. He later participated in the Peninsular campaign and saw service in the battles of Gaines' Mill and Malvern Hill. During this campaign he contracted typhoid fever while at Harrison's Landing and was sent north on a transport. During the remainder of the war he performed hospital duty, mostly at Lovell Hospital at Portsmouth, Rhode Island, and at Cleveland, Ohio. On March 13, 1865, he was given the Brevets of captain and major for faithful and meritorious service.

The years following the war followed the pattern of frequent moves typical of junior medical officers of the day. He married Louisa Russell, daughter of Robert Russell of Cooperstown, on October 19, 1865, and took his bride to Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, from where he was soon transferred to Fort Harker, near Ellsworth in Kansas. Louisa did not accompany him to the latter post, but joined him in 1867 just prior to an outbreak of cholera. She was one of the first civilians to develop the disease which killed her within a few hours on July 15 and soon claimed a toll of about 75 people at the fort.

Later career

Yellow fever

During two years at Governors Island and three (1872–75) at Fort Barrancas, Florida, Sternberg had frequent contacts with yellow fever patients, and at the latter post, he contracted the disease himself. He had earlier noted the efficiency of moving inhabitants out of an infested environment and successfully applied that method to the Barrancas garrison. At about this time, Sternberg published two articles in the New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal ("An Inquiry into the Modus Operandi of the Yellow Fever Poison," July 1875, and "A Study of the Natural History of Yellow Fever," March 1877) which gained him status as an authority on yellow fever. While convalescing from his bout with the disease in 1877 he was ordered to Fort Walla Walla, Washington, and later that year he participated in a campaign against the Nez Perce Indians. The spent his spare hours in study and experimentation which laid a foundation for his later work. In 1870 he perfected an anemometer and patented an automatic heat regulator which later had wide negative use. His report (1881) declared that the Bacillus malariae had no part in the causation of malaria. The same year—simultaneously with Louis Pasteur—he announced the discovery of the pneumococcus, eventually recognized as the pathogenic agent of lobar pneumonia. He was the first in the United States to demonstrate the Plasmodium organism as cause of malaria (1885) and to confirm the causitive roles of the bacilli of tuberculosis and typhoid fever (1886). He was the first scientist to produce photomicrographs of the tubercule bacillus. He was also the earliest American pioneer in the related field of disinfection in which he began with experiments (1878) with putrefactive bacteria. This work was continued in Washington and in the laboratories of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, under the auspices of the American Public Health Association. For his essay "Disinfection and Individual Prophylaxis against Infectious Diseases" (1886), later translated into several languages, he was awarded the Lomb Prize. He oversaw creation the US Army enlisted hospital corps ("medics") in 1887.

Sternberg was retired on account of age on June 8, 1902, and devoted the later years of his life to social welfare activities in Washington, particularly to the sanitary improvement of dwellings and to the care of tuberculous patients. Sternberg died at his home in Washington, on November 3, 1915.

Memberships and awards

Sternberg was a member of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, the Society of the Army of the Potomac, the Sons of the American Revolution and the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States.

He was awarded the Civil War Campaign Medal and the Indian Campaign Medal. He was posthumously eligible for the Spanish War Service Medal.

Legacy

On Sternberg's monument in Arlington National Cemetery is the inscription:

<blockquote>Pioneer American Bacteriologist, distinguished by his studies of the causation and prevention of infectious diseases, by his discovery of the microorganism causing pneumonia, and scientific investigations of yellow fever, which paved the way for the experimental demonstration of the mode of transmission of this pestilence. Veteran of three wars, breveted for bravery in action in the Civil War and the Nez Perce Wars. Served as Surgeon General of United States Army for period of nine years including the Spanish War. Founder of the Army Medical School. Scientist, author and philanthropist. M. D., LL. D.</blockquote>

Along with Pasteur and Koch, Sternberg is credited with first bringing the fundamental principles and techniques of the new science of bacteriology within the reach of the average physician.

A collection of his papers is held at the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland.

Awards and accolades

  • Honorary degree of LL.D., University of Michigan (1894)
  • Honorary degree of LL.D., Brown University (1897).
  • Honorary member, Epidemiological Society of London, the Royal Academy of Rome, the Academy of Medicine of Rio Janeiro, the American Academy of Medicine, and the French Society of Hygiene.
  • Member (and one time president) of the American Medical Association, the American Public Health Association, the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States, the Washington Biological Society, and the Philosophical Society of Washington (of which he was President in 1900).

See also

  • United States Army Medical Department Museum, Ft Sam Houston, San Antonio, Texas

References

Additional sources

  • This article contains information that originally came from US Government publications and websites and is in the public domain.
  • "The Trials and Tribulations of George Miller Sternberg (1838–1915) – America's First Bacteriologist," Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, Summer 1993. Vol. 36, Iss. 4; pg. 666.
  • Who's Who in America, 1914–15
  • Kober, G. M. (Editor), Address Delivered at the Complimentary Banquet to Gen. George M. Sternberg – on his Seventieth Birthday (1908)
  • Abbott, A. C. in Tr. Coll. Physicians Philadelphia (1918)
  • Kelly and Burrage, American Medical Biographies (1920)
  • Pilcher, J. E., Surgeon Generals of the Army (1905)
  • Obituary in Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), November 3, 1915.
  • Phalen, Col. James M. (Compiler), "Chiefs of the Medical Department, U.S. Army 1775–1940, Biographical Sketches," Army Medical Bulletin, No. 52, April 1940, pp.&nbsp;70–74.
  • Video: Sternberg Medical Pioneers Biography on Health.mil – The Military Health System provides a look at the life and work of George Sternberg.
  • The Surgeons General of the U.S. Army and Their Predecessors at the Office of Medical History, OTSG Website
  • University of Virginia, Walter Reed Typhoid Fever, 1897–1911 Describes Sternberg's continuing role in the Typhoid Fever Board
  • Biography at Virtualology.com
  • Dr. George M. Sternberg – Oceans of Kansas
  • Xiphactinus audax – Oceans of Kansas