George Miller Sternberg (1838 - 1915) was a United States Army physician and Brigadier General who is considered to have been the first bacteriologist in the United States. The pioneering German bacteriologist Robert Koch honored him with the epithet, “The Father of American Bacteriology”. As a young assistant surgeon, he was captured and escaped at the First Battle of Bull Run (1861). In 1881, he isolated (independently and simultaneously with Louis Pasteur) the pneumococcus. He created the US Army enlisted hospital corps (“medics”) in 1887 and wrote the first US bacteriology textbook in 1892. He served as United States Army Surgeon General from 1893 to 1902 and founded the Army Medical School (precursor of today's Walter Reed Army Institute of Research) in 1893. He instituted the famous “Walter Reed Boards” in 1898 and 1900 and in 1901 founded the United States Army Nurse Corps.

References

"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

1838 births | 1915 deaths | United States Army Surgeons General