1909

Recognizing William Gorgas’ sanitation and public health work in Cuba and Panama, AMA elects him president. His inauguration speech, The Conquest of the Tropics for the White Race, “focused on malaria and described in detail his department’s malaria mitigation methods – mosquito destruction, swamp draining, brush cutting, screening, the dispensing of quinine pills, and continual inspection and oversight – which enabled him to cut the malaria rate by three quarters” (Byerly I, 182).