Henry W. Wickes was born May 22, 1869, the son of
Peregrine and Henrietta Catharine Welsh Wickes of Maryland. His father was a highly regarded Maryland
judge who combined a quick, active, comprehensive intellect, and unimpeachable
integrity with great administrative abilities.[1] Henry graduated from the
University of Maryland School of Medicine on April 14, 1892 where he won the
McKew Prize for medicine.[2] He became an acting assistant surgeon of the
U.S. Marine and Hospital Service on April 24, 1893 and then a year later commissioned
as assistant surgeon on May 25, 1894.[3] On May 27, 1895 he married
Josephine Craig.[4]
Wickes was a peripatetic surgeon who worked on many
important assignments during his career. In the spring of 1896, he reported on
a smallpox outbreak in Memphis, TN.[5] The next year he was
transferred from his work in Baltimore to Boston.[6] On May 16, 1899, he
successfully became a passed assistant surgeon.[7] Then six months later he
was ordered to Glasgow, Scotland arriving on December 23, 1899. While in
Glasgow he was responsible for enforcing the United States quarantine
regulations on vessels departing for America. This work was the leading edge of
the Service’s efforts to prevent the entry of communicable disease into
America. In 1900, while working in Glasgow, he discovered the possible presence
of plague bacillus in bone dust shipped from Bombay India. Based on his remarkable discovery, Surgeon
General Walter Wyman placed a halt on the importation of bone dust into the
United States.[8]
He was ordered to Reedy Quarantine station in Reedy
Island Delaware (March 12, 1903- September 27, 1906).[9] His next assignment took him to the New York City
quarantine station (September 28, 1906-June 17, 1907). While in New York, he was temporarily assigned
to the nearby Perth Amboy, New Jersey station with a start date of June 18,
1907.[10] He was then ordered to
New Orleans (April 8, 1908-November 1909).[11] After New Orleans he was sent to Cairo,
Illinois (November 1909-1912) [12] during which time he was
promoted to the position of Surgeon.[13] Wickes was briefly stationed in Boston in
1913 and during this time was ordered to perform examinations of immigrants
arriving at New Bedford.[14] On September 9, 1914 he
was then sent to Detroit, MI (1914-1916) but this work was cut short in 1916 when
he was ordered to work on a special project to address the horrific infantile
paralysis epidemic that struck thousands of children in New York City.[15] If this schedule was not
enough to tire him out, it certainly affected his family. In the midst of all
of these assignments his personal life took a beating. Although he and
Josephine had two children - Henry Welsh Wickes Jr. (1902-1951), Josephine B
Wickes (1909-1998) - their marriage apparently did not work out. They separated
sometime prior to World War I. He met Willie Eugenia Henderson Wall from Erie
Pennsylvania and they got married on December 28, 1916. They had one daughter,
Madelon Barbara Wickes, born July 12, 1918.[16]
On June 4, 1919, Wickes was ordered to Buffalo, New
York but was soon relieved of his duties there and shifted to work in
Evansville, Indiana. [17] He was in charge of the
Marine Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio (September 4, 1919-September 17, 1922)
followed by an assignment to the Washington DC offices of the Public Health
Service (September 18, 1922 –June 3, 1923).
On June 4, 1923 he received orders to become the fifth
officer in charge at the Boston Quarantine station. During his tenure in Boston
Wickes oversaw the completion of the station buildings that were under
construction as a result of the typhus epidemic of 1921. With the aid of the
local architect's office, the delousing outfit, sterilizers, and kitchen and
dining room equipment for detention barracks were finished in time for the
expected flood of immigrants on July 1, 1923. The island did not have a salt-water
fire-fighting system and Wickes felt such a system would be needed protect the
island quarantine station.
In his 1923 report to the Surgeon General he noted
that routine work of boarding and fumigating vessels and inspecting passengers
had increased. The cooperation of the medical personnel of the shipping lines
and of the service representatives stationed at points of embarkation was
excellent. It was unnecessary to bring ashore a single immigrant or to hold in
quarantine a single ship because of the presence of communicable disease – an
outstanding accomplishment after over one hundred years of continuous incursions
of communicable disease into the harbor. Wickes also managed a laboratory that
was established at the Boston quarantine station for the examination of rats
for plague. During 1923, his staff examined a total of 6,734 rats, including
rats trapped at Boston, Mass., Weymouth, Mass., Providence, R. I., and a number
taken from ships fumigated in Boston, and Portland, Maine. No plague-infected
rats were found. [18]
On October 20, 1924 he was ordered to the Columbia
River quarantine station in Astoria Oregon.[19] Henry W. Wickes died while
employed at that station on July 20, 1926 at the untimely age of 57.[20]
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