Uncinariasis (Hookworm Disease) in Porto Rico: A Medical and Economic Problem, Volume 59
(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
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Bailey Kelly Ashford was an American physician who had a military career in the United States Army, and afterward taught full-time at the School of Tropical Medicine, which he helped establish in San Juan.
Background
Bailey Kelly Ashford was born on September 18, 1873 in Washington, District of Columbia, United States.
His father, Dr. Francis Asbury Ashford, of an old Virginia family, was dean and professor of surgery in the medical school of Georgetown University. His mother, Isabelle Walker Kelly, was the daughter of Moses Kelly, native of Vermont and acting secretary of the interior in the cabinet of President Buchanan.
Education
Ashford's general education was obtained at the public schools and at Columbian University in Washington D. C. (now George Washington University). In 1896, he graduated from the Georgetown University School of Medicine.
Career
After graduating from the university Ashford served a term as resident physician at the Children's Hospital in Washington, entered the medical service of the army in November 1897. The following year he was sent with the troops of Gen. Theodore Schwan to Puerto Rico. He participated in the battle of Hormigueros on August 10 and following the end of hostilities took station at Ponce.
It was here that he began the investigation of the prevalent tropical anemia among the agricultural laborers in the coffee and sugar plantations which resulted in the momentous discovery that the disease was caused by an intestinal infestation with a worm that was given the name Necator americanus.
After much individual work he was instrumental in the creation of the Puerto Rico Anemia Commission, of which he was a member, that carried on an extended field campaign in which 300, 000 persons were treated.
By the end of a decade the mortality from tropical anemia, which had amounted to 12, 000 yearly, was reduced by ninety percent, and the total death rates for the island were reduced one-third. To this initiative was directly due the campaign against hookworm disease in the southern states of the Union and a later world-wide campaign by the Rockefeller Institute, in which Ashford had some direct part.
In February 1899 he was married in San Juan to Maria Asuncion Lopez, thus establishing a bond with Puerto Rico that held tightly throughout his life. Between short tours of service in the United States he was always back on duty in San Juan, where he first served the military garrison and later participated in the organization of the Institute of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. To this institution he devoted the remainder of his life, becoming in the meantime a leading practitioner of the capital city.
Columbia University of New York in 1926 took control of the Institute, and Ashford was given the position of professor of mycology and tropical medicine. He was also head of the medical service of the University Hospital in San Juan.
In June 1917, while attending in New York the meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine, of which he was president, he was promoted to the grade of colonel and appointed surgeon of the 16t Division, American Expeditionary Force, and sent with it to duty in France.
Later in 1917 he was detached from this post and sent to Langres, there to organize and conduct a field service school for medical officers. For this duty, which he continued until the end of the war, he was given the
Whether from his close application to work or from long tropical residence, the later years of Ashford's life were clouded with ill health. He died in San Juan, survived by his wife and three children: Mahlon, Gloria Maria, and Margarita.
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Membership
He was a member of the Association of American Physicians and of the Association of Military Surgeons, a fellow of the American College of Surgeons and of the American College of Physicians.
Connections
Ashford was married to María Ashford, they had three children.