Site of Gorgas Memorial Institute

Summary

A view of the Gorgas Memorial Institute grounds, Panama City, Panama. The cornerstone can be seen in the distance.

Subject

• Gorgas Memorial Institute of Tropical and Preventive Medicine
• Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI)
• Biological Survey of the Panama Canal Zone, 1923-1924

Category

Historic Images of the Smithsonian

Notes

• During the Biological Survey of the Panama Canal Zone, Smithsonian staff were in Panama with the Institute for Research in Tropical America. A group of private foundations and universities under the auspices of the National Research Council established a research laboratory on Barro Colorado Island, Panama Canal Zone, now known as the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, in order to investigate the flora and fauna of tropical America.
• The Gorgas Memorial Institute of Tropical and Preventive Medicine was founded in 1921 and was named after Dr. Gorgas. William C. Gorgas was a United States Army physician and 22nd Surgeon General of the U.S. Army (1914-1918). He is best known for his work in Florida, Havana and at the Panama Canal in abating the transmission of yellow fever and malaria by controlling the mosquitoes that carry them at a time when there was considerable skepticism and opposition to such measures.
• Albert S. Hitchcock was a botanist with the United States Agriculture Department's Bureau of Plant Industry and Honorary Curator of Grasses at the United States National Herbarium at the Smithsonian.
• The negative number #1090 is Hitchcock's negative number. The original photograph is located in Hitchcock's travel album. For other views of the site for Gorgas Memorial Institute see Negs. SIA2010-0704, SIA 2010-0705, SIA2010-0706, SIA2010-0707, and SIA2010-0709.

Contained within

Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 229, Box 19, Folder: Volume 2 nos. 782-1118

Contact information

Institutional History Division, Smithsonian Archives, 600 Maryland Avenue, SW, Washington, D.C. 20024-2520, SIHistory@si.edu

Date

c. 1923-1924

Restrictions & Rights

No restrictions

Topic

• Panama City (Panama)
• Scientific expeditions
• Landscapes
• Cornerstones
• Natural History
• Plants
• Tropical Biology
• Natural history
• Botany

Place

Panama

Form/Genre

• Photographic print
• Landscape

ID Number

SIA2010-0714 or Hitchcock #1090

Physical description

Number of Images: 1; Color: Black and white ; Size: 6.25w x 4.25h; Type of Image: Landscape; Medium: Photographic print

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