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Chapter Six

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I

n October 1877, the Sternbergs returned to the quiet garrison life of Fort Walla 

Walla. Transient officers, such as Dr. George M. Kober, were still welcomed. 

Kober, a 27-year-old German immigrant who had served in the army as a 

hospital steward and worked for Lieutenant Colonel Woodward in the Surgeon 

General’s Office while he attended Georgetown Medical School, became a contract surgeon in July 1875. Kober became acquainted with the Sternbergs when 

he passed through Fort Walla Walla on his way to the field hospital at Camp 

MacBeth, Kamiah, Idaho Territory. Their friendship was instantaneous and—as 

will be seen—enduring.1

Preliminary experiments to test the efficacy of disinfectants, which Sternberg 

began in 1876, continued as well as efforts to refine his photomicrographic skills 

in an upstairs bedroom he had converted into a photographic gallery.2 In a letter 

to the surgeon general’s office in December 1878, he requested a heliostat and 

two objectives for his microscope, and stated he had become a “good practical 

photographer.”3 It is unknown whether Sternberg attempted to produce photomicrographs of bacteria at Walla Walla. Robert Koch had accomplished that feat 

using the anthrax bacillus earlier in 1877 in the small town of Wollenstein in Prussia. Koch’s paper explaining his techniques and demonstrating his results was not 

published until November in Beiträge zur Biologie der Pflanzen. Although it is unlikely Sternberg was a subscriber, he probably knew of Koch’s work through Joseph 

Woodward, a skilled German linguist and one of the premier photomicroscopists 

in the world, at the Army Medical Museum.4

Sternberg’s interest in disinfectants began in Kansas and was broadened by experiences with sanitary measures during the yellow fever epidemics at Fort Barrancas. 

Also, Joseph Lister’s method of antiseptic wound treatment with carbolic acid 

remained an active topic of discussion in the medical profession at large and in the 

literature, and it very likely played a role in his continued interest in the preventive 

and therapeutic value of disinfectants. Apparently, Sternberg never seriously 
92 The Life and Science of Surgeon General George Miller Sternberg 

experimented with Lister’s technique. He did apply carbolic acid dressings to the 

wounds of the Clearwater casualties and left gunshot wounds open with the long 

ends of ligatures on blood vessels dangling from the wound. Regrettably, he left no 

comments on the benefit of Lister’s method. This is interesting because Sternberg, 

with his deep interest in the most current developments in medical science and 

particularly the germ theory of disease, did not attempt to validate the technique, 

or at least report on his experience with it. Sternberg may have attempted his own 

case series using the procedure at Fort Walla Walla and obtained poor or equivocal 

results that he regarded as unreportable. If he could not reproduce Lister’s results, 

he may have decided the method was more trouble than it was worth and lost 

interest in it to address disinfectants on a broader scope.5

Field duties notwithstanding, Sternberg also remained focused on the study of 

yellow fever during his tour in the northwest. His last paper concerning the yellow 

fever epidemics at Fort Barrancas, “A Study of the Natural History of Yellow Fever, 

and Some Remarks upon the Treatment Based upon the Same; with Cases and 

Tables of Observations upon the Temperature and Urine,” was published in March 

1877.6 His photomicrographic work and expanding interest in disinfectants, like 

his ideas concerning the germ theory of disease, were not separate endeavors, but 

vital and interrelated pieces of the yellow fever puzzle. Sternberg was convinced 

that he could assist in solving the mystery of yellow fever etiology and develop 

preventive modalities through continuing research. Through experience in four 

epidemics, publication in the literature, and involvement with the American Public 

Health Association (APHA), he had established himself as an authority on yellow 

fever not only in the army, but also in the civilian medical community. Whether 

he perceived his rise in professional status among his medical peers in the east or 

from the distant confines of Fort Walla Walla is not apparent, but events in the 

Mississippi River Valley in the summer of 1878 placed Sternberg at the forefront 

of yellow fever investigations and research in the United States. 

On July 12, 1878, the first official case of yellow fever was reported in New 

Orleans. In the ensuing weeks, an estimated 40,000 citizens of the Crescent City 

fled northward by wagon, steamer, and rail. This massive migration—and the 

disease it brought with it—overwhelmed the quarantines enacted against New 

Orleans by other cities and smaller communities along the way. By the time the 

epidemic ended in November, cases and deaths were reported as far north as 

Gallipolis, Ohio. It was estimated that more than 100,000 cases and 20,000 deaths 

occurred in 200 communities. The broad swathe of devastation left by the epidemic 

cut through all levels of society and generated a sense of helplessness and frustration 

on a large scale. Existing control measures had been inadequate, and immediate action was demanded at the national level. Under this pressure, Congress was 

forced to address not only the current system of quarantine, but also the growing 

agitation for public health reform.7

The public health movement in the United States was glacially slow. Some 

quarantine and sanitary regulations had been known since the colonial period, 

but these enactments were generally instituted during times of epidemic disease 
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and rapidly forgotten when the threat had passed. Health, like most social issues 

in 19th century America, was essentially local. Public health reform would not 

have a nationally oriented champion until the establishment of the APHA in the 

spring of 1872.8

The variability of a state or central public health system led to the creation of the 

APHA, and it eagerly joined in the campaign to establish a national health agency 

with quarantine supervision as one of its main functions. Advocates of a nationally regulated quarantine system substantiated their position based on the Federal government’s constitutional right to regulate commerce. Those in opposition 

maintained such a reading of the commerce clause was a violation of states rights. 

Furthermore, a national quarantine would remove the authority of local health officials most knowledgeable on conditions in their cities. An ironic situation was created when political battle lines were drawn. Northeastern congressmen, directed 

by their states’ well-paid quarantine officials and many southerners still clinging to 

the idea of state sovereignty, labored against a national quarantine, while southern 

congressmen and physicians rallied around the APHA in urging for federal control 

of quarantine operations. Northern interests, however, defeated or watered down 

the first four quarantine bills in the early 1870s. This was the situation in the spring 

of 1878, as Congress recessed and yellow fever docked in New Orleans aboard 

ships from the Caribbean and South America and drove up the Mississippi Valley.9

As the epidemic raged in late summer, John M. Woodworth, Supervising Surgeon 

General of the Marine Hospital Service, began a campaign to gain control of any 

national quarantine service, but APHA leadership—James L. Cabell, John S. Billings, 

Henry I. Bowditch, and Elisha Harris—feared him both politically and scientifically. As the November meeting approached, tensions between Woodworth and the 

APHA intensified.10

On November 2, Surgeon General Barnes directed Sternberg to be one of the 

Medical Department representatives to the APHA meeting. At the conclusion of 

the session, he was to report in person to Barnes in Washington. Barnes’ selection of 

Sternberg and the fact that he directed him to report personally afterwards are significant. If Barnes had simply wanted an army representative experienced in yellow 

fever and knowledgeable on quarantine operations, it would have been easier and 

less expensive to send surgeon Harvey Brown. If he had wanted someone to provide 

him with a report of the meeting, he could have asked Billings or Woodward. Barnes 

believed Sternberg’s experience with yellow fever would be valuable, and Barnes 

put special merit in his medical opinion of the proceedings. However, in light of 

the political tensions building between Billings and Woodworth, and the pro states 

rights faction of the APHA, Barnes may have been looking for Sternberg to provide a truly objective commentary of the events. Sternberg, who had worked closely 

with southern public health officials during the most recent yellow fever epidemics, 

was intimately familiar with quarantine problems along the Gulf coast. This experience put him solidly in the national quarantine camp, yet Sternberg, unlike Billings, 

Woodward, or Brown, was a Washington clique outsider. As such, his opinion may 

have carried extra weight with the surgeon general.11
94 The Life and Science of Surgeon General George Miller Sternberg 

The APHA meeting was called to order on the evening of November 19. That 

morning, Woodworth distributed an unauthorized program that allowed for all 

hypotheses regarding yellow fever causation and prevention to be aired during the 

convention. Such discussions caused dissension among those supporting an independent national health agency and permitted Woodworth to establish himself as 

the preeminent leader of the public health movement. The executive committee 

promptly crushed Woodworth’s attempted coup . Although tensions remained, the 

drama of the opening session soon faded into rather anticlimactic discussions on 

the origin and progression of yellow fever in the south and the failure of preventive 

measures. After three days of intense haggling over the nature, origin, transmission, and prevention of yellow fever, a set of six propositions defining APHA’s 

conclusions and position regarding the recent epidemic was prepared for a vote: 

1. Yellow fever, in 1878, was a specific disease, not indigenous to or originating 

in the United States, and it was due to a specific cause.

2. Quarantine establishing nonintercourse will prevent the importation of 

yellow fever. 

3. It is the duty of the government to establish such a quarantine. 

4. It is the duty of the government to appoint and fund an expert commission 

to investigate the causes of yellow fever, and methods of preventing its 

introduction into this country. 

5. It is the duty of the government to invite foreign nations to cooperate in 

establishing effective international quarantine regulations. 

6. State and municipal authorities should ensure that local sanitary measures are 

attended to at all times. (All six propositions passed easily in the waning hours 

of the last session on November 22, and APHA adjourned for another year.12)

Sternberg was less than satisfied with the results of the convention when he 

departed Richmond. The content of his conversation with Barnes did not survive, 

but he composed an editorial concerning the Richmond meeting for the Medical Record that provided his opinions. Sternberg advocated—and believed the 

majority of those attending the convention also did—that the APHA should be 

a controlling influence on urgently needed national public health legislation that 

included a national quarantine. He also felt the majority agreed “that yellow fever 

in the United States usually results from the importation of cases or fomites, and...

importation can be prevented by proper quarantine restrictions. I think...a majority were of the opinion that yellow fever never originates in the United States; but 

no vote having been taken upon the proposition formulated by a committee.... I 

cannot be sure that I am right.”13 He referred to the first of the six propositions. 

Originally, it had stated that yellow fever was a specific disease that never originated in the United States except by importation, but since the commission had 

not completed its work, a compromise was reached that stated it was considered to 

be imported only in 1878. Sternberg was extremely displeased that the APHA had 
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accepted such a diluted position on the issue. His displeasure centered on the fact 

that “it gives color to the prevalent popular belief that the doctors know little or 

nothing about yellow fever, and that the late epidemic has upset all preconceived 

theories and opinions, and left us all afloat.”14 He also emphatically stated that the 

“etiology of yellow fever is as well settled as is that of typhoid or remittent fever, 

and that those in and out of the profession who are still in doubt as to how epidemics of yellow fever originate and progress may obtain reliable information upon 

the subject by consulting...standard medical works....”15 Sternberg was convinced 

yellow fever was always imported and contracted from exposure to an infected 

area. “The facts observed and recorded by myself for four minor epidemics fully 

support this statement,” he concluded, “and the matter is so thoroughly settled 

that in future investigations,...we should turn our attention to the discovery of the 

unknown special cause [of the disease].”16 Although Sternberg’s pronouncements 

seemed brash, he did not miss the mark. More importantly, he was truly sparing 

in the ring of medical science. Sternberg’s blood was up, and Levi must have been 

extremely proud.

On December 2 in his annual address to Congress, President Rutherford B. Hayes 

urged “that Congress give the whole subject [of quarantine and public health] early 

and careful consideration.”17 Faced with an expectation to do something, Congress 

created the National Board of Health (NBH), but gave it little or no real power. The 

first official meetings of the NBH were held in early April in the Army Medical Museum in Washington, DC. Officers were elected—James L. Cabell became president, 

John Shaw Billings became vice president, and Thomas Turner became secretary—

and standing committees were organized. Without power or money, the membership determined that the board’s duties would be cooperative and advisory, and they 

established three objectives for the coming year:

1. the institutionalization of scientific investigation and collection of public 

health information, 

2. the advisement to various governmental branches, and 

3. the submission to Congress of a plan for a permanent NBH. 

Also discussed in earnest was the organization of a commission to study yellow 

fever in Havana, Cuba. The act creating the board authorized it to “make...such 

special examinations and investigations at any place or places within the United 

States, or at foreign ports, as they may deem best.”18 The board organized the First 

Havana Yellow Fever Commission over a 3-week period, and Congress supported 

the effort with a $13,000 appropriation. The following designations were made: 

Stanford E. Chaille as chairman, Thomas S. Hardee as sanitary engineer, Juan 

Guiteras as pathologist, Henry Mancel as official photographer, and Rudolph 

Matas as clerk. Early on, the board decided a bacteriologist was essential to the investigation’s success, and, by law, it was permitted to request the loan of personnel 

from other governmental branches. The executive committee—most probably at 

the urging of Billings—lost no time in securing Sternberg as secretary and bacteriologist for the commission.19
96 The Life and Science of Surgeon General George Miller Sternberg 

Sternberg received orders to report to the surgeon general on April 18, but his new 

assignment was not specified. However, by the time he and Martha journeyed eastward, he must have had some idea of what awaited him. Mrs. Sternberg commented 

that he knew “that he would be able there [in the east] to pursue under favorable 

conditions the scientific and sanitary research on which he was engaged.”20

At the initial planning sessions in Washington, the objectives of the commission, equipment and training requirements, and other operational details 

were discussed in depth. Between July and October, the commission was to do 

the following:

1. “ascertain the...sanitary conditions of principal ports in Cuba...to 

determine how...sanitary conditions can best be made satisfactory, 

and ...what can and should be done to prevent the introduction of the 

cause of yellow fever into the shipping of these ports,” 

2. “increase the existing knowledge of the pathology of yellow fever,” and 

3. “obtain as much information as possible with regard to the...endemicity 

of yellow fever in Cuba, and the conditions which may...determine such 

endemicity.”21

Chaille and Colonel Hardee would address objectives 1 and 3, Guiteras would 

concentrate on objective 2, and Sternberg was tasked with the additional problems 

relating to yellow fever. It was an ambitious task with the time and money available, and the board members made it clear that they did not expect a complete 

investigation.22

Sternberg must have been pleased with his assignment. For the first time in his 

army career, he had been recognized for his abilities as a medical scientist. He 

had been given carte blanche to conduct yellow fever research in any direction 

he considered appropriate, and the most modern equipment had been procured 

for him to do so. Sternberg’s assumptions were that yellow fever had a bacterial or 

fungal origin that acted on the blood to change its constitution and, therefore, he 

determined the first line of inquiry would be the examination and culture of blood 

from yellow fever patients. Then transmission experiments upon lower animals 

would be performed, and a complete examination would be conducted of the water and air of Havana. If the disease was an organism visible under the microscope, 

Sternberg was confident that he could find, culture, and photograph it.23

The commission arrived in Havana on July 7. The San Carlos Hotel, overlooking 

the harbor, had been selected to provide office and laboratory space because of its 

moderate price—$100 a month for five rooms—and because H. C. Hall, the U.S. 

Consul-General, resided there. Captain-General Don Ramon Blanco, the Spanish 

governor of the island, welcomed the commission and declared Spain’s enthusiastic support for its work and his personal assistance with its mission. In that regard, 

carpenters configured two rooms in the San Carlos to Sternberg’s specifications 

for photographic purposes. Blanco also appointed a 12-man auxiliary commission that included, among others, Dr. Carlos Finlay, to assist the commission locally and form a permanent organization in Cuba to continue yellow fever studies. 
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He also assured the commission that there was no dearth of yellow fever cases at 

the San Ambrosio Military Hospital.24

While Chaille gathered information on port sanitation, commerce, and the 

endemicity of yellow fever on the island and Guiteras began pathological examinations in the morgue, Sternberg collected blood from patients at the military hospital. At the end of the first week, he wrote Martha that he was “working away in 

the laboratory and had commenced some experiments.”25 As promised, plenty of 

yellow fever cases existed, but problems—over which he had no control—emerged 

and caused him anxiety. In a letter to John Shaw Billings, he confided his impatience with the constant parade of Cuban physicians through his laboratory that 

delayed his work, Guiteras’ slow and unaggressive nature—a remark he would 

later retract—and how Matas was an industrious, but inaccurate clerk.26 Although 

these comments sound like those of an obsessive-compulsive scientist incapable 

of understanding anyone less gifted or dedicated, they were merely the symptoms 

of larger personal issues. He had been ill for several days, and it delayed his work. 

Moreover, it intensified his own anxieties concerning his abilities to find the yellow 

fever germ in the short time allotted. 

In one of his more prophetic statements, Sternberg told Billings, “I am satisfied 

that the man who succeeds in solving the problems connected to yellow fever must 

devote himself to the investigation not for three months but probably for years.”27

With meticulous technique, he spent hundreds of hours patiently preparing and 

analyzing blood smears, photomicrographs, and culture preparations. He eventually examined 98 blood specimens from 41 confirmed yellow fever cases and 

produced 105 photomicrographs, which Woodward praised highly later. However, 

he found nothing significant. Culture experiments with urine, black vomit, and 

infected blood produced a wide variety of bacterial and fungal growth, but none 

of them had any correlation to his blood smear preparations. His attempts to find 

anything of interest in the water of Havana Harbor or the air of the city proved 

fruitless, as did his experiments on lower animals. However, he still hoped that the 

appearance of fatty granules in the red blood cells would prove pathognomonic of 

the disease. He commented to Billings in late August, “If this appearance in yellow fever blood is peculiar to this disease, and if by drawing...blood & examining 

it by the microscope a positive diagnosis can be made at the outset of a case the 

discovery will be of great importance. I speak of it as a discovery as I know of no 

recorded observation of a similar appearance wither in the blood of yellow fever 

or any other disease. If you know of any such observation please inform me at 

once. I propose at some future time to examine the blood of other febrile diseases 

& especially of pernicious remittent [malarial fever].... If in the meantime you 

can learn anything in relation to this matter from any source I hope that you will 

inform me of the fact.”28

By late August, Sternberg’s exasperation had increased with the conduct of the 

investigation and the commission members. He wrote to Billings on August 29, 

“This has been a bad week for me & I am in swearing humor today. My work had 

been interrupted by visitors who think nothing of spending three or four hours 
98 The Life and Science of Surgeon General George Miller Sternberg 

with us & expect to see the photographs & look through the microscope. Some 

of these visitors are friends & relatives of Dr. Guiteras, some are doctors that 

Dr. Chaille or myself are under slight obligations to & who must consequently be 

treated politely. Then I have been bothered by cloudy weather & worried by heat & 

mosquitoes in my work room & fretted by mistakes made by the clerk in making out 

vouchers & exasperated by the fact that Dr. G is in Matanzas at the end of the month 

& I have been obliged to send him my vouchers for approval by Matas the clerk, at 

a time when his services were required here, etc. etc. I do not propose to make any 

complaints against my confreres of the Comm – but I assure you that I will not play 

second fiddle a second time in any future investigation of yellow fever – Nor will I 

serve on equal terms with a young man who has not passed the period in life when 

sweethearts & aunts & uncles are of primary importance. I am not in a position to 

order or direct & yet cannot help fretting. When I see time wasted – I must stop 

harping on this string. G is a clever fellow & I like him.”29 More importantly, Sternberg’s hope that he would discover yellow fever’s causative agent had been obliterated by a plethora of negative laboratory findings. His work continued to be “...about 

the same thing everyday. Going to the hospital for specimens and looking through 

the microscope at blood and bilge water and black vomit and urine and all those 

nice things.”30 He told Mrs. Sternberg, “I have not found the yellow fever germ...,” 

but consoled himself by commenting, “...I have done good work here and think I 

will get credit for it with the Board of Health.”31 It was the best that could be hoped 

for. By the end of the month he had concluded, “If there is any organism in the blood 

of yellow fever demonstrable by the highest powers of the microscope as at present 

perfected, the photographs taken in Havana should show it. No such organism is 

shown in any preparation photographed immediately after collection.”32 In one of his 

last letters home, Sternberg’s loneliness and fatigue from the tedium and monotony 

of the investigation was clearly apparent, “It will be a happy day for me when I reach 

Washington and take my dear wife in my loving arms again. I feel that I need rest 

and the comforts of home and the company of my dear wife. This living in a hotel 

and working from 7 in the morning until 10 at night gets to be an old story after 

awhile.”33 The commission departed Havana in early October. Sternberg returned to 

Georgetown to rest and write the commission report.34

The report, presented to the NBH at the APHA meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, 

on November 18, was well received. It described the following:

1. principal Cuban ports, 

2. the amount of intercourse these ports had with American cities and its 

correlation with annual yellow fever activity, 

3. yellow fever endemicity on the island with a description of unsanitary 

conditions in major harbors and cities, and 

4. Sternberg’s laboratory investigations and Guiteras’ pathological work. 

The commission had done excellent, comprehensive epidemiological work and 

offered recommendations to correct sanitation, and it suggested an international 
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sanitary conference be organized among nations who traded with Cuba. Although 

Sternberg’s ego had been bruised by not finding the yellow fever germ, the NBH 

had been impressed with his laboratory methods and results, and it wanted him 

to continue with yellow fever research and other projects. Furthermore, the board 

had another medical corps officer on loan from the surgeon general, Captain 

Charles Smart, who had been assigned to perform “chemical and microscopical 

work connected with sanitary investigations.”35 To employ them both productively, the NBH established a laboratory in the building it rented in Washington at 

1410 G Street, NW. Sternberg and Smart now had a scientific home in which to 

perform their duties.36

In December 1879, Sternberg was directed to pursue investigations on the value 

of gaseous and volatile disinfectants and to examine airborne dust particles for 

the presence of microorganisms. An ever-increasing array of chemicals claimed to 

have disinfectant properties was being used by public health officers and surgeons 

to preclude or halt widespread epidemics and local infectious processes. The precise 

nature, mode of action, and true practical value of these agents, however, were 

unknown. In his earlier work on disinfectants, he had noted the methodological 

dilemma of obtaining truly pure cultures in liquid media and then finding a reliable technique to appropriately evaluate the effect of an agent on an organism. For 

his experiments, Sternberg constructed an air chamber in which he could expose 

bacteria to various concentrations of disinfectant gases, such as chlorine, ammonia, and sulfuric, carbolic, and nitric acid. A microscope mounted on the chamber 

allowed him to observe the bacteria for cessation of motility during exposure. He 

also made the same tests using smallpox vaccine. Surprisingly to medical personnel today, after exposing doses of vaccine to sulfuric acid gas, he and Dr. Smith 

Townsend, Health Officer for Washington, DC, rubbed exposed and unexposed 

vaccine into the scarified arms of children from the public institutions in the capital. With but a few exceptions, all of the vaccine exposed to the gas failed to produce the expected vesicles, while the unexposed vaccine gave the usual reaction. 

Sternberg concluded, “Exposure for 6 hours or more to an atmosphere containing 

at least 1% of sulphurous acid gas, chlorine, or nitrous acid gas, is a reliable method of disinfection.”37 As for carbolic acid, he determined that it had no disinfecting 

capability—either in the gaseous or crude solid form—in the concentrations currently being used by public health officials and surgeons. Although historians have 

given Koch much acclaim for initiating comparative studies of disinfectant effects 

on certain bacteria and destroying the belief that carbolic acid had any therapeutic 

value, Sternberg’s experiments predated Koch’s work by at least a year.38

These experiments, in retrospect, were simple, relatively easy to accomplish, and 

provided the sought-after information in relatively rapid time. Determining the 

microbial content of the air and its significance would not be so simple. Sternberg 

had read the studies on atmospheric dust in relation to cholera and dysentery in 

India by Royal Army Surgeon David Douglas Cunningham and Pierre Miquel’s 

similar studies conducted in Paris. He found “no gross or conspicuous germ or organism...in the air of infected localities” in Cuba, but had identified considerable 
100 The Life and Science of Surgeon General George Miller Sternberg 

numbers of acicular and prismatic crystals.39 Although these crystals were enigmatic, no one knew what the normal composition of microbes, crystals, and so 

forth in free air was or what happened to them once inspired into the lungs. With 

this in mind, the board had distributed small wooden boxes containing two glass 

slides to many of its members after a meeting in October so they could collect dust 

from their homes. The boxes were returned to Sternberg by mail. He examined 

all specimens closely and made an interesting discovery. Six pairs of the glasses 

had been exposed in rooms occupied by yellow fever patients in various areas of 

Louisiana. All 12 slides contained a large number of radiating acicular crystals exactly like he had found in the military hospital in Havana. In addition, slides from 

New Orleans demonstrated prismatic crystals, also similar to crystals found in 

the air of Havana, but specimens from Washington, DC, Philadelphia, Boston, 

Mobile, and Bellevue Hospital in New York City did not. With nothing else to 

go on, and probably at Sternberg’s urging, the board sent him to New Orleans in 

early February.40

Sternberg arrived in New Orleans with instructions not only to examine the air of 

the city and blood of yellow fever patients for evidence of crystal formation, but also attempt to repeat the recent joint experimental work of Doctors Edwin Klebs and Corrado 

Tommasi-Crudelli on malaria. They claimed to have isolated the etiological bacteria 

of malaria, Bacillus malariae, the previous summer from the Pontine marshes near 

Rome and reproduced the disease in laboratory rabbits. The scientific community had 

generally accepted the high reputations of both investigators—Klebs as a bacteriologist and Tommasi-Crudelli as a malariologist—and their careful laboratory work. The 

NBH reasoned that if a swamp-dwelling bacterium caused the disease, then Sternberg 

should be able to find it in the malarious environs of New Orleans.41

From February until well into May, Sternberg exclusively pursued the investigation 

of suspended particles in the air. The results obtained left him so unimpressed that he 

did not feel justified in publishing them until January of the following year. Although no common microbe from infected atmospheres was demonstrated, Sternberg 

felt that more extended researches should be performed before a negative result was 

accepted. Furthermore, he commented, the “possibility of the existence of organisms 

morphologically alike, but differing in the physiological action must be borne in mind 

in investigations relating to the etiology of disease.”42 He concluded the most important result—and one that agreed with the observations of Cunningham, Miquel, 

and others—was that “bacterial organisms are not found in the atmosphere, even in 

crowded cities in a southern latitude...during summer months, in any considerable 

number...and consequently that the method by direct examination...does not give 

promise of definite results in regard to the supposed relation of these...organisms to 

the prevalence of epidemics.”43

By May, Sternberg was ready to let the dust in the air settle and prepared to address 

the malaria question. He obtained and analyzed in detail a translation of Klebs’ and 

Tommasi-Crudelli’s report, “Studi sulla Natura della Malaria.” They had isolated a 

bacillus that, when injected into rabbits, produced a cyclic temperature curve, enlarged 

spleens, and black pigment in their blood and various organs. Sternberg initiated his 

experiments by mixing mud gathered from suburban marshes with distilled water and 
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subcutaneously injecting varying amounts of this solution into rabbits in his laboratory. However, he—not the rabbits—became ill as May progressed. He requested a 

leave of absence to travel north for his health in May and did not return to New Orleans 

until September 2.44

Sternberg had hardly reopened his laboratory when his old friend and NBH 

representative in New Orleans, Dr. Samuel Bemiss, contacted him with rumors of 

a yellow fever outbreak 52 miles south of New Orleans in Plaquemines Parish. Dr. 

J. B. Wilkinson, “the oldest and most experienced physician on the lower coast,” 

according to Bemiss, had diagnosed six cases—four of them fatal—in the Giordano family and advised residents to remove their unacclimated children from 

the area.45 Bemiss had wired the NBH, Dr. Joseph Jones, president of the State 

Board of Health of Louisiana, and physicians in Plaquemines Parish immediately 

to verify the rumor. He also offered financial assistance from the NBH to assist in 

precluding the spread of the disease. Jones replied that Dr. B. N. Taylor and other 

physicians in the area did not believe yellow fever was circulating, but rather only 

mild malaria, and directed inspections and sanitary precautions be instituted as 

required. However, Jones’ response did not convince Bemiss of the absence of yellowjack along the lower coast.46

Relations between the two men and the public health agencies they represented 

had never been cordial. The National Quarantine Act of June 2, 1879 had given the 

NBH quarantine authority over states that failed in these duties. Jones, an unreconstructed Confederate, became president of the Louisiana State Board of Health 

on April 8, 1880, and resented what he considered federal interference in state 

matters. He saw himself as the champion of public health in New Orleans and the 

defender of the city’s commerce against federal incursion, but undoubtedly enjoyed the income and political patronage that came with quarantine control. During the summer, Jones’ relationship with Bemiss and the NBH deteriorated dramatically. NBH’s failure to provide financial aid requested by the Louisiana Board 

of Health over the past year, and its desire to shift primary quarantine operations 

from Mississippi River Station—65 miles below New Orleans—to Ship Island Station off the coast of Mississippi led to state and federal difficulties in coordinating 

and maintaining an effective quarantine along the Gulf coast. In late 1879, the 

NBH reported that Mississippi River Station was in the least desirable location 

possible. It could not preclude communications with New Orleans or the inhabitants along the river in Plaquemines Parish, infected ships could not be segregated 

from noninfected ones, hospital facilities were inadequate, and mosquitoes were 

rampant. Jones maintained the state-board-operated station provided appropriate protection to the Mississippi Valley. In July, with an eye toward public health 

power in the Mississippi River Valley and New Orleans commerce, he requested 

$10,000 from the NBH for needed repairs and equipment, and the same amount 

to be provided to the state board for use in an epidemic. The request was denied, 

Jones declared, because he had not agreed with the federal agency in establishing the primacy of the Ship Island Station. As Bemiss and Jones wrestled with 

this issue, an erroneous message was released stating that the NBH reported 11 

yellow fever deaths had occurred in New Orleans. Jones was sure the NBH had 
102 The Life and Science of Surgeon General George Miller Sternberg 

orchestrated the incident to force the Ship Island Station issue. Although amends 

were made, the damage had been done. Now Bemiss could not be sure that Jones 

was not hiding a yellow fever outbreak just to maintain trade in the Mississippi 

Delta and his own sense of power. He needed Sternberg to visit the lower coast 

and render a verdict.47

On September 7 or 8, Sternberg conducted a field investigation at Pointe Michel 

and Pointe à la Hache in the company of two local physicians, Doctors Hays and 

B. N. Taylor. He visited 20 cases of the prevailing fever and found a total of 65 

cases and six deaths had occurred. Most of the cases had been young children 

in the predominantly French Creole population. He described the disease as “a 

continued fever of single paroxysm, lasting...from a few hours to four or five 

days. No regular temperature observations have been made, but from the statements of Dr. Hays, and my own observations, I am satisfied that the fever is a 

mild grade, and not characterized by remissions or intermissions.”48 Only three 

cases demonstrated any hemorrhaging, and while only Dr. N. M. Hebert’s fatal 

case demonstrated albumin in the urine, Sternberg found only three such cases 

during his visit. Although six deaths had occurred, he diagnosed the outbreak as 

one of benign, abortive, or incomplete yellow fever. He concluded in his September 

10 report to Bemiss, “For me the fever is identical to yellow fever, and only differs in degree from the more severe forms.... It seems...extremely unscientific to 

make our diagnosis depend upon a greater or less percentage of mortality, and the 

sooner physicians in the yellow fever zone, admit...that yellow fever is not always 

a malignant disease...that the immunity of creoles is due to their having suffered 

(generally in childhood) from this milder form of the disease...and that it is not 

a birth right, the better will it be for the progress of medical science and the true 

interests of commerce where these diseases prevail.”49 

Bemiss was pleased with Sternberg’s work, sent his report to Jones on September 13, 

and again reminded him that he was authorized to draw up to $10,000 from the 

NBH coffers for preventive measures. If Bemiss thought Jones would now subvert 

his political position by accepting federal dollars previously refused, he was sadly 

mistaken. Jones curtly replied the same day, “The communication...has been received and noted. The board of health of the State of Louisiana has investigated 

the malarial fever.... Such measures as the board of health deem necessary have 

been instituted.”50 Apparently, no report of this supposed investigation was forwarded to Bemiss, but he did receive a large dose of criticism from Jones concerning Sternberg’s opinion of the outbreak. The state board’s president made it clear 

that he considered the investigation a deliberate attempt to create a panic. Bemiss 

was furious and decided to repeat the investigation with a composite team of state 

board of health and NBH members. The committee on fever on the lower coast 

consisted of Doctors J. Dickson Bruns and J. P. Davidson, both of the board of 

health; Doctors Robert W. Mitchel and Sternberg, representing the NBH; and Mr. 

H. D. Bruns, son of Dr. Bruns, who would perform any required autopsies.51

Just before noon on September 15, the committee docked at Myrtle Grove, 

the plantation of Dr. J. B. Wilkinson. For the next two days, committee members 
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tramped about the lower coast between Pointe Michel and Pointe à la Hache seeing 

convalescent patients in the company of Doctors Hebert, A. B. Hays, and Westerfield. The local physicians were extremely accommodating, but Sternberg noted 

that their clinical histories were less than robust, urine testing for albumin was 

performed haphazardly, and temperature charts were nonexistent (Hays was the 

only physician to own a thermometer). Bruns reported upon returning that the 

illness was “an endemic malarial fever, of remittent type, and...of a mild character. 

Its unusual prevalence is due partly, to the meteorological conditions of the past 

summer, and partly...to the widely increased cultivation of rice.”52 As to the nature 

of the malady, he stated “neither in its special features nor in their entirety, could 

I realize a single prominent characteristic of yellow fever.”53 As to the deaths, he 

attributed them to noncompliance in taking the prescribed medication, quinine.54

Sternberg, unconvinced that malaria alone had generated all of the fevers and 

deaths noted, provided a minority report in which he said that nothing he had 

observed during his second tour of the lower coast or anything he had read in 

Bruns’ report induced him to change his opinion of the outbreak. Although he 

admitted he had not seen any single case that enabled him to positively diagnose 

yellow fever, he believed—nonetheless—the origin and progress of the outbreak 

supported his conclusions. The first fever cases had occurred in Westerfield’s practice, directly across the river from the quarantine station where the bark Excelsior, 

which was infected with yellow fever, had anchored from mid-July until mid-August. 

Westerfield saw his first case on August 1. Hays began to have an abundance of 

cases in mid-August, and, in early September, Hebert began to treat the same fever 

several miles north of Hays’ area of practice. Additionally, Westerfield noted this 

fever was the same as in 1878 and did not recall that any of the current epidemic 

victims had the fever then.55

Sternberg was adamant that the theory of the fever being malarial and emanating 

from the local rice fields was erroneous. Even though he agreed some cases were 

probably malarial, the natural history of the outbreak did not support an exclusively malarial diagnosis. Adults were exposed to the rice fields on a daily basis, 

but children suffered the most from this outbreak. Little of the fever was seen in 

rice-growing areas, yet some cases occurred in an area devoid of rice cultivation, 

but near a custom house station where infected ships docked before disinfection. 

Dr. Wilkinson, Sr., who was considered a most experienced and competent physician by his colleagues and was familiar with the presentation of endemic malarial 

and yellow fever seen on the lower coast, consulted on many cases in Hays’ and 

Hebert’s practices. He also concluded that it was continuous and definitely was 

yellow fever.Wilkinson’s assessment notwithstanding, the majority of New Orleans 

physicians closed ranks with Jones and the state board of health in upholding the 

malaria diagnosis. They declared the NBH had intentionally tried to cause a yellow 

fever panic and considered Sternberg’s knowledge of yellow fever in Louisiana as 

“tenth rate.”56 Crescent City newspapers added their weight to this public flogging 

by painting the NBH representatives as inept scoundrels, and Sternberg as an 

“ignorant charlatan, unfitted for his position.”57
104 The Life and Science of Surgeon General George Miller Sternberg 

Sternberg returned to the mud of the river batture and Lafayette and Congo 

squares in New Orleans. He collected a few buckets of ooze, ladled it into terrariums he constructed in his laboratory, and observed these artificial marshes 

for microbial growth over the next six weeks. By the end of November, he had 

observed and photographed numerous organisms from his terrariums and injected a total of 37 rabbits with mud solutions and, as controls, saline and his 

own saliva. Ten rabbits had become ill and died, but he found little evidence 

that they had succumbed to malaria. Sternberg concluded: “Among the organisms found...are some which closely resemble and, perhaps, are identical with...

Bacillus malariae...but there is no satisfactory evidence that these, or any other 

of the bacterial organisms...when injected beneath the skin of a rabbit, give rise 

to malarial fever.... The evidence upon which Klebs and Tommasi-Crudelli have 

based their claim of...discovery...cannot be accepted as sufficient; (a) because 

in their experiments and in my own the temperature curve in the rabbits...has 

in no case exhibited a marked and distinctive paroxysmal character; (b) because 

healthy rabbits sometimes exhibit diurnal variations of temperature as marked 

as those shown in their charts; (c) because changes in the spleen...are not evidence of death from malarial fever...as similar changes occur in the spleens of 

rabbits dead of septicemia produced by the sub-cutaneous injection of human 

saliva; (d) because the presence of dark-colored pigment in the spleen cannot be 

taken as evidence of death from malarial fever...as this is frequently found in the 

spleen of septicemic rabbits.”58

After weeks of diligent and intensive experimentation, Sternberg could only 

state that, from his point of view, the results of Klebs and Tommasi-Crudelli were 

too weak to substantiate their claim. He admitted he had not found the B malariae

in the mud of New Orleans and, more importantly, if the bacillus did exist, he 

could not say that it did not produce malaria in humans. The world paid scant attention to Sternberg’s work in Louisiana, but it lauded the two researchers in Italy 

for their masterful bacteriological work. Ironically, however, his efforts to find the 

B malariae led him to stumble onto an unexpected and intriguing development. 

Of the 10 rabbits that died in his laboratory, he noted one had been injected with 

saliva and died from a “diffuse cellulitis and septicemia....”59 Sternberg had no clue 

of what might exist in his own saliva to precipitate such an event, but was eager to 

investigate the issue in his Washington laboratory. Before these researches could 

begin, however, he had one more obligation to attend to in New Orleans.

APHA’s annual meeting would be held in the Crescent City in early December. Sternberg had accepted a request from the APHA to prepare a presentation on yellow fever and national quarantine. The meeting provided him with 

the appropriate professional forum to return fire on his detractors, and he 

prepared his attack on the inadequacy of quarantine measures in New Orleans with skill and precision. Past experience, he declared, had demonstrated 

to quarantine officials that yellow fever is not transmitted person to person, 

but it is carried in some other fashion aboard cargo vessels. “It is evident,” 

he declared, “that we, as sanitarians, cannot remain silent spectators of the 

administration of a quarantine based upon fallacious principles, and which 
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does not furnish any adequate protection to the people of the great Mississippi 

Valley, without a certain amount of criminal complicity. It is high time...this 

matter be thoroughly discussed.... I am strongly inclined to believe, that, for 

New Orleans, unrestricted intercourse and the quick dispatch of vessels from 

infected ports would present but few dangers beyond those annually incurred 

under the present system of quarantine administration. Let us have a quarantine worthy of the name, or none at all.”60 Sternberg admitted New Orleans 

had many issues to contend with in the execution of an effective quarantine 

that other cities did not. “The numerous water-ways by which the city may be 

approached; its extended commerce; the strenuous opposition to quarantine 

on the part of an interested portion of the community; the support given to 

these opponents by a certain number of physicians who believe that yellow 

fever is an endemic disease in the city; and, finally, the difficulty of obtaining 

an efficient administration where politics control everything,...”61 He blasted 

operations at the Mississippi River Station as worthless and remarked that the 

continual whining about lost commerce was grossly overestimated and would 

never amount to the economic loss of one epidemic such as was seen in 1878. 

In light of the current situation in New Orleans, Sternberg defended complete 

non-intercourse quarantine measures, but he advocated a more practical solution to the problem. “I believe...sanitary science is...in a position to indicate 

methods, which, if faithfully executed, will reduce these risks to such an extent 

as to make a quarantine of non-intercourse unnecessary.... It is evident...we 

require uniformity of laws, and inflexibility in their execution; which can only 

be obtained by allowing the laws to emanate from a central authority, and their 

execution to depend upon persons removed from the domain of politics.”62 He 

then outlined the fundamental principles for a rational quarantine and—in so 

doing—defended the logic of the Ship Island Station: 

1. all vessels, cargoes, ballast, passengers, crew, and baggage coming from an 

infected port should be considered infected and treated as such; 

2. detention in quarantine for a longer time than needed to disinfect the vessel 

and cargo is unnecessary and unjustifiable; 

3. all cargo must be removed to properly disinfect a vessel; 

4. keeping passengers and crew aboard a vessel suspected of being infected 

upon arrival in port in order to test the question of infection is unscientific, 

unreliable, and inhumane practice; and 

5. a quarantine station should be considered an infected area, employing only 

immune individuals, and should be located so that unauthorized persons 

cannot gain access to it. 

He concluded by saying, “...I believe it as much the duty of the National Government to protect the country from the invasion of pestilential diseases as from a foreign 

enemy; and consequently the maintenance of such a quarantine should devolve upon 

it,...and this without any tax upon commerce, or upon the unfortunate people who 
106 The Life and Science of Surgeon General George Miller Sternberg 

are subjected to detention. A great government should resort to no petty measures when she stretches out her hand to protect the people from a serious evil.”63

Sternberg’s part in Louisiana quarantine politics was finished. He returned home, 

wrote his report on malaria, and eagerly awaited the publication of his translation 

of Magnin.

The English translation of Magnin’s Bacteria, the first general text on bacteriology in English, appeared in bookshops late in 1880. This text had been an invaluable 

handbook for Sternberg during his experiments over the past year. His translation 

grew out of a desire to share this knowledge with his colleagues and fill a void 

in the scientific literature. Sternberg was convinced that the dearth of American 

literature on the subject belied the true interest of American scientists in bacteriology. A reliable textbook for experimentation was needed that also provided a 

foundation of knowledge by which individual American scientists could begin to 

correctly judge the value of bacteriological work emanating from Europe. Laudatory reviews of his translation from the Medical Record and the American Journal 

of the Medical Sciences indicate that his efforts to remedy this situation in an unbiased and scientific manner were well received by scientists and physicians alike.64

In January 1881, the United States hosted the 5th International Sanitary Conference in Washington, DC. The focus of the first four conferences revolved around 

discussions of cholera and international quarantine agreements to limit its dissemination. The United States had not taken part in any of these conferences, even 

though it was just as vulnerable to cholera as the rest of the world. Participation at 

this juncture was based on purely political motives covered in a thin veil of interest 

in international sanitary science. In response to the increased incidence of yellow 

fever over the past 2 years, Congress passed an act on June 2, 1879 that prevented 

the introduction of contagious or infectious diseases into the United States. Any 

vessel destined for America needed a sanitary history certificate verified by the 

U.S. consul in the country of origin, and this required the consul to inspect the 

ship. Obtaining international agreement on this piece of domestic legislation was 

crucial or it would be unenforceable, and hence the motive for sponsorship of the 

conference. Although the conference was largely an administrative exercise, the 

seventh session did include a prescient scientific announcement. On February 18, 

Finlay, representing Cuba and Puerto Rico, stated three conditions necessary for 

the propagation of yellow fever: 

1. “The presence of a previous case of yellow fever within certain limits of 

time....

2. The presence of a person apt to contract this disease...and 

3. The presence of an agent entirely independent for its existence both of the 

disease and of the sick man, but...necessary in order that the disease shall 

be conveyed from the yellow-fever patient to a healthy individual.”65

Finlay admitted his theory of an intermediate agent was “a mere hypothesis,” 

but maintained its validity, and in August he would proclaim the mosquito as that 

agent. His announcements, however, fell on deaf ears.66
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Sternberg left no written opinion of the conference proceedings, and Finlay’s hypothesis left him unmoved. His mind was engaged elsewhere. Experiments relating to the virulence of his saliva and work on disinfectants were begun in January 

in the Washington laboratory and continued in Dr. H. Newell Martin’s laboratory 

at Johns Hopkins University, where he was reassigned by the NBH at the beginning of March. Martin, professor of biology at Johns Hopkins, was an outstanding 

research physiologist who had been trained by Michael Foster and Thomas Huxley, and had been recruited by the university in 1876. His small laboratory rapidly 

became a center for physiological research, and there Martin made many significant contributions to the physiology of the circulation. Sternberg’s experiments, 

with what would prove to be Streptococcus pneumoniae, were as close as he would 

ever come to presenting a previously unknown microorganism to the world. Soon 

after he began his studies, he became aware that Louis Pasteur had found—and 

reported—a “new disease” generated by the subcutaneous injection of saliva from 

a child dying with rabies into rabbits. The etiological agent was a micrococcus, but 

it was weeks before Sternberg could unequivocally declare that the micrococcus 

recovered by Pasteur was identical to the one he had found in his mouth in New 

Orleans. His research, however, was independent of Pasteur’s, and his report demonstrates the elegant, logical, and comprehensive approach to solving laboratory 

questions for which he became famous.67

Sternberg hypothesized that one to two cubic centimeters of his saliva injected 

subcutaneously into rabbits invariably produced death within 48 hours. To prove 

this contention, he first injected rabbits with other fluids—blood, putrefying 

bouillon, fecal and mud solutions—and saliva from colleagues in Philadelphia 

and students in Baltimore. Only solutions of mud from New Orleans and saliva 

from Philadelphia produced death. Sternberg’s oral secretions were apparently not 

unique in their virulence, a difference he attributed to exposure to septic material 

by his colleagues and himself over the years. Then he attempted to produce fatalities in other laboratory animals, specifically dogs, guinea pigs, chickens, and rats. 

As with Pasteur’s experiments, only the guinea pigs succumbed. However, one of 

the dogs died when injected with serum from a rabbit recently dead from septicemia. Apparently, whatever killed the rabbits became more virulent in the process 

and was capable of killing larger animals when transmitted by serum injection.68

He described the disease as a septicemia, both in the nature of its course and 

at postmortem examinations. Shortly after, injection fever developed, which was 

followed by marked inflammation and edema at the injection site. At 24 hours, the 

animal was sluggish, without appetite, and death usually occurred by 48 hours. He 

said that an examination of venous and arterial blood and the bloody serum from 

subcutaneous connective tissue revealed “an immense number of micrococci, 

usually joined in pairs.”69 The virulence of the microbe was destroyed by boiling or 

incubating at 37°C for 24 hours. Filtration through a layer of plaster of Paris rendered these fluids innocuous, and, therefore, Sternberg concluded the virulence 

factor was particulate in nature. Virulence was maintained in initial and successive 

cultures in bouillon and serum from healthy dogs, and he noted, as did Pasteur, the 

capsule surrounding each organism.70
108 The Life and Science of Surgeon General George Miller Sternberg 

Finally, Sternberg concluded the microbe found in his saliva was morphologically identical to that found by Pasteur in the mouth of a child dying of rabies in 

Paris. He was quick to point out, however, that identical structural characteristics 

did not guarantee the diseases generated were identical. Sternberg was adamant on 

this point and stated, “The man of science soon finds that things which look alike 

are not necessarily of the same kind.... The argument...that because a certain bacillus, 

or spirillum, or micrococcus, is morphologically identical with another, which is 

proved to be harmless...consequently it must be harmless, has no support from 

analogy any more than it has from experiment. And it is high time that naturalists 

and physicians should open their eyes to the fallacy of such an argument, as it not 

only has a tendency to close the minds of those who receive it to the reception of 

demonstrated truth, but also acts...as a bar to the progress of science in this direction.”71 He admitted the two diseases had many characteristics in common, “but I 

am not prepared to pronounce a positive opinion upon this point, especially since 

Pasteur, who had previously given much attention to the study of septicaemia, 

pronounces the disease observed by him to be new, while I see no reason...for 

supposing that the disease observed by me differs essentially from the experimental septicaemia produced by Davaine, Koch and other investigators, who, however, 

obtained their first supply of septic organisms from a different source.”72

Sternberg, for personal reasons, would have liked the two diseases to be different. 

But his obligation to science was to analyze and present his results as they were and 

correlate them with previously reported data. In doing so, he made these conclusions concerning systemic infections, their distribution in nature, and impact on 

society: “In the light of what we know now, it seems very probable that puerperal 

fever, hospital gangrene, and the various forms of septicaemia...result from the 

development of pathogenic varieties of harmless and widely-distributed species 

of micrococci.... The fact...that during the summer months the mud in the gutters 

of New Orleans possesses an extraordinary degree of virulence shows that pathogenic varieties of bacteria are not alone bred in the bodies of living animals. The 

more I study this subject the more probable it seems...that in this direction lies 

the explanation of many problems which have puzzled epidemiologists, and that 

the sanitarians are right in fighting against filth as a prime factor in the production 

of epidemics.... The presence of septic organisms, possessing different degrees of 

virulence depending upon the abundance and kind of pabulum furnished them 

and upon meteorological conditions more or less favorable, constitutes...the epidemic constitution of the atmosphere, which wise men were wont to speak of not 

many years ago as a cloak of ignorance. It must be remembered...the gutter mud 

of today, with its deadly septic organisms, is the dust of tomorrow, which in respiration is deposited upon the mucous membrane of the respiratory passages of those 

who breathe the air loaded with it. Whether the peculiar poison of each specific 

disease is of the same nature or not...it is altogether probable...this factor often 

gives a malignant character to epidemics of diseases which uncomplicated, are of a 

comparatively trivial nature.”73

This passage reflects not only that Sternberg had acquired a bit of the preacher 
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from his father and had developed his epidemiological skills since 1870, but also 

that he recognized the broader implications and applications of laboratory medicine and a responsibility to articulate them. He understood that the very nature 

and distribution of microorganisms demanded sanitarians and bacteriologists to 

work together for the good of public health science. He also recognized in these 

experiments that morphological characteristics were not indicative of microbial 

virulence. The work of Casimir Davaine and Koch with the anthrax bacillus and 

Otto Obermeier with the spirillum of relapsing fever had generated a hope that 

structurally distinct organisms would be found for each infectious disease. Sternberg 

saw this as an easy answer to a complex subject, a forlorn hope. Virulence did not 

necessarily exist unchanged over time, and its effects were influenced by many host 

and environmental factors. 

Sternberg undoubtedly recovered and observed S pneumoniae two months before 

Pasteur, but he was unable to describe its structural and virulent characteristics until 

three months after the French chemist had published his work, and, therefore, priority of discovery fell to Pasteur. He could claim, however, he was the first scientist in 

the United States to independently identify the organism. The fact that S pneumoniae

was originally recovered from healthy carriers of the organism—not from patients 

ill with streptococcal disease—does not appear to have been considered significant, 

nor was the capsule surrounding the organism given much consideration. The medical 

communities in Europe and America gave little attention to the discovery. One more 

microorganism that induced septicemia in laboratory animals had been discovered, 

but no substantial connection with human disease had been offered.74

Nonetheless, the spring of 1881 was a high water mark for the 43-year-old 

Sternberg. His ambition, boundless energy, and motivation for studying, experimenting, and publishing overcame the difficulties multiple army relocations 

imposed on his scientific endeavors. He was a subject matter expert on yellow fever 

and microscopy and, through his NBH investigations, was recognized as one of the 

premier laboratory scientists in the nation and a leader in the fledgling field of bacteriology. Designated a fellow by courtesy of Johns Hopkins University, Sternberg 

settled easily into academic life at the university. With no army-imposed time limits 

bracketing his special assignment to the board, it appeared likely that he would 

continue in this capacity for an indefinite period.
110 The Life and Science of Surgeon General George Miller Sternberg