Henry Rose Carter (August 25, 1852 – September 14, 1925) was an American physician, epidemiologist, and public health official who served as assistant surgeon general of the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. His research and protocols were critical in understanding and preventing the transmission of both malaria and yellow fever.
Carter was born in Virginia in 1852. After attending the University of Virginia and the University of Maryland medical school, he joined the Marine Hospital Service (MHS). He was stationed at various MHS hospitals across the South, where he became interested in yellow fever. In 1888, he was dispatched to Mississippi's Ship Island, where he spent a decade developing novel quarantine methods.
In a 1898 study conducted in Mississippi, Carter discovered the extrinsic incubation period of yellow fever. This work implied the role of a secondary host, soon identified as the mosquito by U.S. Army physician Walter Reed. Carter served as director of hospitals in the Panama Canal Zone from 1904 to 1909. In 1915, he was appointed to assistant surgeon general by Congress. Carter retired in 1920 and died five years later.
With Reed and Carlos Finlay, Carter is regarded as one of the three researchers who helped identify yellow fever as mosquito-borne. Alongside Finlay, Carter was nominated for the 1904 Nobel Prize in Medicine for their work identifying the mosquito vector of yellow fever. Carter is also considered the father of modern quarantine.