The U.S. Public Health Service · Episode 4 of 34 · 39 min
Disease Detectives: The Founding of the EIS (1951)
A Cold War fear of germ warfare created the world's most famous corps of outbreak investigators. Alexander Langmuir's Epidemic Intelligence Service championed shoe-leather epidemiology, cracked the 1955 Cutter polio-vaccine disaster, and became a model copied worldwide. It is real power, but the kind that finds the truth and advises rather than commands.
Who's who
- Alexander D. Langmuir+1 more episodeEpidemiologist who founded the Epidemic Intelligence Service
- Berton RouechéWriter known for disease-detective stories
Where it happens
- Atlanta, Georgia+10 more episodesHome of the Communicable Disease Center
Timeline
- 1946Communicable Disease Center created in Atlanta
- March 1951Langmuir proposes an epidemic intelligence corps
- October 26, 1951Epidemic Intelligence Service established
- 1955EIS traces the Cutter polio vaccine disaster to Cutter Laboratories
Still debated
Counts of EIS officers vary by source. Historians also debate how central biological-warfare fears were versus their usefulness in selling a peacetime corps, and Langmuir institutionalized surveillance rather than inventing it.
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