The Gorgas Medal was originally established as an annual award in 1915 by the Medical Reserve Corps Association of New York in honor of Surgeon General William C. Gorgas, U.S. Army. The award was based on a writing competition open to members of the U.S. Army Medical Corps, the U.S. Army Medical Reserve Corps, and to Medical Corps members of other “organized militia”. Surgeon General Gorgas appointed Colonel Charles Richard, Lieutenant Colonel Champe C. McCulloch, Jr., and Major Eugene R. Whitmore, Medical Corps, to form a review board and act as judge and jury for the writing competition. These officers were members of the Army Medical School faculty.[1][2]
In 1942, the Gorgas Medal was established by Wyeth Laboratories of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to honor Major General William Crawford Gorgas. The award was to be presented annually for ‘distinguished work in preventative medicine’. The award consisted of a Silver Medal, a scroll, and an honorarium of $500.[3][4] In 2010, the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States (AMSUS) restructured the awards program and the Gorgas Medal and Prize was no longer awarded. AMSUS took over administering the Gorgas Medal for Wyeth and renamed the award the William Gorgas Preventive Medicine Award.[5] AMSUS is the Society of Federal Health Professionals. The award was given to an individual for 'distinguished work in preventive medicine, clinical application, education or research'. To be eligible for the award, nominees had to be veterinarians, environmental engineers or sanitation engineers, or from other discipline not from other individual professional award categories from any of the five health agencies represented by AMSUS. The criteria for receiving the award required the individual to have demonstrated accomplishments in accordance with the following objectives:
- Contributions to the eradication, control and/or prevention of disease, including, but not limited to, development of new vaccines and treatment protocols
- Educational endeavors leading to a healthier population
- Development of modern biological defense medical countermeasures
- Development and identification of emerging technologies that may occur during any phase of medical product development from inception through licensure (Recognition may include the full range of technologies on how new products are manufactured, formulated and administered.)
AMSUS. "AMSUS Annual Awards Program" (PDF).
- ^ Baketel, H. Sheridan (editor). (February 1915). The Gorgas Medal. The Medical Times. Volume 43. Romaine Pierson, publisher.
- ^ Gorgas, Marie D. (1924). William Crawford Gorgas: His Life and Work. Kessinger Publishing.
- ^ National Academies, (1961). Scientific and Technical Societies of the United States and Canada. National Academy of Sciences. National Research Council. Publication 900. Washington, D.C.
- ^ Marble, Sanders (editor). (2011). Builders of Trust. Government Printing Office. United States Department of Defense. Washington, D.C.
- ^ Hume, E. E. (1942). The medals of the United States Army Medical Department and medals honoring army medical officers (No. 98). American Numismatic Society.