William H . Welch William Henry Welch ( April 8 , 1850 – April 30 , 1934 ) was an American physician , pathologist , bacteriologist , and medical school administrator . He was one of the " Big Four " founding professors at the Johns Hopkins Hospital . ( The " Big Four " , often called the " Four Horsemen " , were William Osler , Professor of Medicine ; William Stewart Halsted , Professor of Surgery ; Howard A . Kelly , Professor of Gynecology ; and William H . Welch , Professor of Pathology . ) He was the first dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and was also the founder of the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health , the first school of public health in the country . The medical school library is also named after Welch . In his lifetime he was called " the Dean of American Medicine " . Biography . Born to William Wickham Welch and Emeline Collin Welch in Norfolk , Connecticut , Welch was educated at Norfolk Academy and the Winchester Institute . His father as well as a grandfather and four of his uncles were all physicians . William Henry entered Yale University in 1866 , where he studied Greek and classics . He received an A . B . degree in 1870 . As an undergraduate , he joined the Skull and Bones fraternity . After a short period of teaching high school students in Norwich , New York , Welch went to study medicine at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons , in Manhattan . In 1875 , he received his MD . In 1876 and 1877 , he studied at several German laboratories to work with , among others , Julius Cohnheim . He returned to America in 1877 and opened a lab at Bellevue Medical College ( now a part of New York University Medical School ) . In 1884 , he was the first physician recruited to be a professor at the newly - forming Johns Hopkins Hospital and Medical School at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore . By 1886 he had sixteen graduate physicians working in his laboratory – the first postgraduate training program for physicians in the country . He helped the trustees recruit the other founding physicians for the hospital – William Stewart Halsted , William Osler , and Howard Kelly . Welch became head of the Department of Pathology when the hospital opened in 1889 . In 1894 , he also became the first dean of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine , and in 1916 , he established and led the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health , the first school of public health in the country . He also established the Institute of the History of Medicine at Johns Hopkins in 1929 . Welch continued to practice and teach pathology . He was a popular teacher . Indeed , his nickname among medical students and postgraduate trainees was " Popsy . " Graduates of his training programs were highly coveted as academic physicians . Medical schools and institutes across the country vied for Welch ' s former students and graduate scientists to fill top posts . Many of his residents went on to become highly prominent physicians , including Walter Reed , co - discoverer of the cause of yellow fever , Simon Flexner , founding director of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research , and future Nobel laureates George Whipple and Peyton Rous . Welch ' s research was principally in bacteriology , and he is the discoverer of the organism that causes gas gangrene . It was named " Clostridium welchii " in recognition of that fact , but now the organism usually is designated as " Clostridium perfringens " . From 1901 to 1933 he was founding president of the Board of Scientific Directors at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research . He was an instrumental reformer of medical education in the United States as well as a president of the National Academy of Sciences from 1913 – 1917 . He also was president of the American Medical Association , the Association of American Physicians , the Congress of American Physicians & Surgeons , the Society of American Bacteriologists , and the Maryland State Board of Health . Welch was a founding editor of the " Journal of Experimental Medicine " . Welch served in the U . S . Army Medical Corps during World War I , and remained in the Reserve Corps for three years thereafter , attaining the rank of Brigadier General ( 07 ) . For his service during the War , Welch received the Distinguished Service Medal . A the age of eighty - four , Welch died on April 30 , 1934 of prostatic adenocarcinoma at Johns Hopkins Hospital . Honors . The William H . Welch Medical Library at Johns Hopkins , which opened in 1929 , is named for him . Welch Road , in the vicinity of Stanford University Medical Center in Stanford , California is named in his honor .