The Armed Forces Epidemiological Board: its impact on communicable diseases with a special tribute to Abram S. Benenson, MD

Abstract

Many leaders in American medicine, busy as they were, found time to contribute their capable services to this remarkable system. Their unstinting urge to participate is attributable to their proud sense of obligation and the privilege of serving our country. Personal gain was not an objective. The opportunities to meet with, work with and argue with the leaders in infectious diseases and other fields during the Board’s meetings, work sessions and small discussions were really minipostgraduate learning sessions. Almost everyone took away a new idea that answered a dead-end question or that illuminated a detour around a difficult obstacle. Information was willingly shared among civilian and military scientists. The spring meetings of the AFEB and its working Commissions usually lasted three days. Those who attended these meetings up to 1973 were privileged to hear the most current data pertaining to the pathogenesis, therapy and control of the important infectious diseases that were prevalent both abroad and in the United States. Truly, these three-day sessions were dress rehearsals for the later spring meetings of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians, usually held in Atlantic City in early May. The participating contributors were usually the same. After 1973, when the Commission system was abol