Arlington National Cemetery

Today I had a "work from home" day, which pretty much means, do whatever you want and see the sights of DC (actually, that's exactly what CPT Ahluwalia told me to do). Many of the sights of DC I have seen multiple times, but I always enjoy going out to Arlington. Actually, I was supposed to be out there anyway today for travel clinic at Ft. Myer (the post on which Arlington sits), but travel clinic was cancelled, so I went out there on my own.

I found the area of the cemetery that really reads like a Who's Who of military medicine. Pretty much, if they've contributed enough to get a hospital or clinic named after them, they're in this section of Arlington.

For example, Walter Reed, who discovered that yellow fever is transmitted by mosquitoes, which allowed the Army to resume and complete construction of the Panama Canal while essentially founding the fields of epidemiology and biomedicine. He now has a major Army Medical Center and research facility named after him (WRAMC and WRAIR). And he did all this after only achieving the rank of Major.

And the back of the tombstone. I also have a close-up of that plaque, right below:

And then, of course, there's Madigan:

This is actually the back. Here's the front:

COL Madigan was assistant to the Army Surgeon General from 1940-1943, and is now regarded as the father of Army neuropsychiatry.

And then one that surprised me:

I didn't know that Sabin was an Army physician. I guess you learn something new every day. For those of you who don't know who Sabin is, maybe the back of the tombstone will give you a hint:

LTC Sabin was the first to develop a vaccine against polio. However, I seriously doubt anybody reading this blog took a Sabin polio vaccine--he developed the oral vaccine, which is still used in developing countries today, but we use the injectable Salk vaccine for a multitude of reasons that I can explain if anyone cares to know.

Obviously, there were many other Army and Navy physicians in that area (I doubt there are any Air Force; all the physicians in this section were practicing before the US Air Force existed), but these were some of the most notable ones.