Medical Pioneer, Author. Full name Charles Augustus Rosenheimer Campbell. Born in San Antonio, Texas, he studied at the University of Tulane Medical School. His idea of building and colonizing bat roosts to control malaria were considered novel. However, in time, people realized that using insect-eating bats as a way to control malaria in a natural and biological way was far-reaching. The Surgeon General of the Army, Gen. W.C. Gorgas, the man responsible for mosquito control at the Panama Canal site lauded his work. The naturalist Teddy Roosevelt praised his actions as well. In 1917 the Texas state legislature made it a misdemeanor to kill bats within the state. (This law was rescinded in the 1950s because of the rabies scare.) In 1915, Dr. Campbell had his research published in the "Scientific American". Because of that article, governments around the world contacted him to have his bat roosts installed in their countries. Two of his bat roosts still stand in Italy, three in Texas and two in Florida. Because of his work, he was nominated for a Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1919. He published the book "Bats, Mosquitoes and Dollars" in 1925. He didn't rest on his laurels with bats and malaria. Through a series of controlled experiments, even using himself as a test case, he proved that the common bedbug was a carrier of smallpox. His studies and experiments also showed that smallpox inoculations could be ineffective. His work and studies from the 1920s are being re-visited now. In a cruel twist of irony given his life's work as a bacteriologist; he died of blood poisoning in 1931. He is buried next to his wife, Ida Hoyer and their three sons. His tombstone bears a weathered copper plate of a bat.
Medical Pioneer, Author. Full name Charles Augustus Rosenheimer Campbell. Born in San Antonio, Texas, he studied at the University of Tulane Medical School. His idea of building and colonizing bat roosts to control malaria were considered novel. However, in time, people realized that using insect-eating bats as a way to control malaria in a natural and biological way was far-reaching. The Surgeon General of the Army, Gen. W.C. Gorgas, the man responsible for mosquito control at the Panama Canal site lauded his work. The naturalist Teddy Roosevelt praised his actions as well. In 1917 the Texas state legislature made it a misdemeanor to kill bats within the state. (This law was rescinded in the 1950s because of the rabies scare.) In 1915, Dr. Campbell had his research published in the "Scientific American". Because of that article, governments around the world contacted him to have his bat roosts installed in their countries. Two of his bat roosts still stand in Italy, three in Texas and two in Florida. Because of his work, he was nominated for a Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1919. He published the book "Bats, Mosquitoes and Dollars" in 1925. He didn't rest on his laurels with bats and malaria. Through a series of controlled experiments, even using himself as a test case, he proved that the common bedbug was a carrier of smallpox. His studies and experiments also showed that smallpox inoculations could be ineffective. His work and studies from the 1920s are being re-visited now. In a cruel twist of irony given his life's work as a bacteriologist; he died of blood poisoning in 1931. He is buried next to his wife, Ida Hoyer and their three sons. His tombstone bears a weathered copper plate of a bat.
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