Unpublished Manuscript on the Life of General William C. Gorgas

1936. Gordon, Ruth
Unpublished Manuscript on the Life of General William C. Gorgas, [circa 1935-1936]

[142] total pp., 8.5" x 11"
Typed manuscript with handwritten amendments (numbered pp. 2-104) + typed title page, foreword, introduction and acknowledgments ([4] pp.) + [28] pp. typed pages variously numbered between 110 and 132 (also with handwritten amendments) + [8] pp. handwritten
Good Condition: handwritten pages lightly chipped and susceptible to more, a few corner dogears, light edge wear and some faint stains, mostly at edges

This is a draft of an unpublished manuscript entitled "Yellow Jack Slayer: Life of William C. Gorgas" written by one Ruth Gordon of Brooklyn, NY and Wilkes Barre, PA, circa 1935-1936. Dr. William Crawford Gorgas was born in Alabama in 1854 and served in the United States Army as a physician (1880-1918) and Surgeon General (1914-1918). Gorgas was assigned to Fort Brown at the height of a yellow fever ("yellow jack") epidemic; while attending to patients and burials, he contracted the disease, which he suspected was the result of a mosquito-borne illness made worse by poor sanitation conditions. He put his theories to the test against outbreaks of yellow fever and malaria in Florida and Cuba, implementing the draining of nearby ponds and swamps, the use of mosquito netting, fumigating for insects and quarantining patients. For his work, which saved countless lives (and which enabled the U.S. to finally complete the Panama Canal), he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal, Victory Medal and Public Welfare Medal. This typed draft is heavily annotated and includes some all handwritten pages. A typed copy of the manuscript is held in the William C. Gorgas collection at the University of Alabama, along with correspondence between Gordon and Gorgas' daughter, Aileen Gorgas Wrightson. Wrightson penned the introduction to the manuscript (present here), in which she expressed gratitude for Gordon's writing and her "pleasure to know that a great deal of credit for his work came to my father before he died. His life was mostly a very happy one.".