COMMUNICABLE DISEASE SPECIALIST IN WORLD WAR I

Scientist and Doctor.

Dr. Victor Clarence Vaughan played an important role in easing epidemics in military camps during World War I, a war in which more Americans succumbed to disease than to combat injuries. Vaughan was born in Mount Airy, Missouri, on 27 October 1851 and led an idyllic childhood on his parents' farm surrounded by horses and playmates. Four years of his childhood were spent in the middle of the Civil War, and Vaughan learned "to hate war and to love peace so dearly that I have been willing to do my small bit in fighting for it." He graduated from Mount Pleasant College, a Baptist school in Huntsville, Missouri, in 1872, learning Latin and teaching himself chemistry after finding the laboratory closed at the school. Vaughan nurtured his fascination with chemistry at the University of Michigan, receiving a Ph.D. and entering medical school in 1876, where he also...