Background
Husk was born in Shabbona, DeKalb County, Ill. in 1872, to William Husk, a village merchant and Celia (Norton) Husk. That his first name frequently appears as Carlos is accounted for by his career in Mexico.
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Charles Ellsworth Husk
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also known as
Charles Ellsworth “Carlos” Husk
Education
He was educated in the grade school of his native town and in the Aurora (Ill. ) High School, taught in the public schools of Aurora, and became principal of the Western High School of that city. He resigned this position in 1895 to study medicine at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Chicago, from which he was graduated in 1898.
Career
After graduation he accepted a position in Mexico where a classmate had preceded him. His first employment was as company surgeon for the American Smelting and Refining Company at Tepezala, Aguascalientes. He afterward was transferred to Santa Barbara, Chihuahua, and in 1911 he became surgeon-in-chief of all the company's interests in Mexico. Though a citizen of the United States, he was appointed municipal health officer of Santa Barbara, a position in which he achieved a wide reputation despite drastic measures foreign to Mexican experience.
He inaugurated a local vaccination campaign which practically stamped out small-pox where it had formerly been regarded as so inevitable that children were purposely exposed in order to insure a milder attack. So successful was this campaign that Husk's authority in sanitary matters was unquestioned thereafter.
Typhus fever, locally called tabardillo, is endemic throughout Mexico. In 1915, however, its incidence had assumed epidemic proportions and it became a public-health problem for the world at large. Among other agencies, Mount Sinai Hospital of New York organized a commission, headed by Dr. Peter Olitsky, for the investigation of the disease in Mexico and enlisted Husk's services in their work. A hospital was established at Matehuala, San Luis Potosí, in the center of the affected zone. Though the method of transmission of typhus by lice had been previously well established, the specific cause of the disease was still unknown. While studies of the bacteriology and serology of the disease were being carried on, a sanitary campaign against the insect carrier was vigorously prosecuted. This was the mission assigned to Husk and he pursued it with his usual judgment and vigor. In addition, an effort at prophylaxis by an anti-typhus vaccine was being employed. In the midst of this work Husk contracted the disease. He died in a hospital at Laredo, Tex. , thus adding another name to the list of martyrs to medical progress, of whom typhus has exacted more than its share.
Achievements
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Husk was a man of inexhaustible enthusiasm and energy. To good judgment he added a never-failing fund of good nature, an ideal combination in one who was dealing with a primitive people. He gave to the problems of the peon the same keen interest as to those of the upper classes. Though at the time of his death relations between the United States and Mexican governments were strained, and feeling against the United States was high, a popular movement was inaugurated for the erection of a monument to his memory. Husk contributed a number of articles to medical periodicals dealing with the medical and sanitary problems of the Mexican people.
Personality
Physically he was short and heavy-set. He had a ruddy face, with irregular features and laughing blue eyes, topped by a mass of red hair.
Interests
Connections
Immediately after graduation he married Corona B. Kirkpatrick of Waterman, Ill. , in his native county.
