Borden's Dream Realized

While Walter Reed continued to emphasize clinical microscopy and bacteriology, achievements in dentistry, X-ray use, orthopedic surgery, prosthetic development, and patient rehabilitation set standards for military and civilian care. The demands of World War I and the many orthopedic injuries treated there made the hospital a standout in orthopedic surgery and a national center for prosthetic fittings. Its academic focus shaped a campus-like organization that expanded with new buildings and institutions. By 1923, the Walter Reed campus became home to the Army Medical School, later known as the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR), considered the first school of public health and preventive medicine in the world; epidemiological field studies by its faculty included Major Walter Reed's investigations of yellow fever. During World War II, research addressed dengue fever, malaria, combat stress, and wound treatment. In global medicine, WRAIR developed vaccines to prevent hepatitis A, meningococcal meningitis, and adenovirus, and it continues work on malarial treatment and prevention. The Army Medical Museum, founded in 1862 to collect pathological specimens and case histories, evolved through the twentieth century into the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP), renamed in 1949 and becoming an international resource for pathology and disease research. In 1955, when the AFIP moved from downtown Washington, D.C., to the campus, Army medical training, research, and patient care were consolidated there for the first time, fully realizing Borden's dream.

Washington, District of Columbia · United States