Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: Texas Standard » Stories from Texas
Episode: The Man Who Led The Battle Against Yellow Fever
Description: By W. F. Strong
I’m walking on the veranda of the Gorgas Building at Texas Southmost College in Brownsville. It’s named for the famous Army physician, William Gorgas, who was sent here to Fort Brown in 1882. This building was already here when he was. It was the hospital he ran. What he would learn here, and what would happen to him, would change the world.
Gorgas was just 27 years old when arrived at Fort Brown. There was a full-blown yellow fever epidemic raging at the time. It was so named because it turned eyes an...