Edgar Erskine Hume

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Edgar Erskine Hume
Medical Corps
Awardssee below
Spouse(s)
Mary Swigert Hendrick
​
​
(m. 1918)​

Edgar Erskine Hume

MD (26 December 1889 – 24 January 1952) was an American physician, Major General in the U.S. Army medical corps, writer and amateur ornithologist. At the time of his retirement from the Army he was the most decorated medical officer in American history.[1]

Early life

Edgar Erskine Hume was born at the Capital Hotel in Frankfort, Kentucky on 26 December 1889, the only son of Dr. Enoch Edgar Hume and his wife, Mary Ellen South. He had a sister called Eleanor Marion, born at "Roselawn" the home of their maternal grandparents.[2] He received his preliminary education at the Frankfort High School and the Franklin Institute and entered college in 1904.

Hume studied medicine at Centre College in Kentucky, being the youngest member of the class, graduating BA in 1908 and MA in 1909. While at Centre College he was a member of the Kappa Alpha Order fraternity.[3] In the same year he entered Johns Hopkins University where he gained his degree of Doctor of Medicine after four years in 1913.

He then did further postgraduate studies in Europe, first in

University of Munich in Germany (1914) then, after the mobilisation of the German army, in the Polyclinic Umberto I at the University of Rome in Italy (1915). After the earthquake
in the Abruzzi mountains in January 1915, Hume was put in charge of the medical relief expedition organized by the U.S. Ambassador to Italy. He stayed in the country until recalled to America by his mother's death in 1916.

In 1916 he passed the examination for admission to the Medical Corps of the Army, standing first among the candidates. He was commissioned First Lieutenant in the Medical Reserve Corps and admitted to the Army Medical School in Washington, D.C. He graduated in February 1917, as first honor graduate, receiving a commission as First Lieutenant in the Regular Army.

Military career

In the

8th Italian Armies during the Battle of Vittorio Veneto.[3]

After the armistice, in February 1919, Lt. Colonel Hume was appointed Chief Medical Officer for

American Forces in Germany and for two months as assistant to the Surgeon in the Post Hospital at Antwerp.[7]

In August 1920, after a year and a half in the Balkans, Lt. Colonel Hume was ordered home to America where in November 1920 he was assigned to duty as assistant to the commanding officer of the Corps Area Laboratory at Fort Banks, Massachusetts, and later as Commanding Officer until June 1922.[8] On his own time he attended classes at Harvard and M.I.T., receiving a certificate in public health ( changed later to Master of Public Health) from M.I.T. and a diploma in tropical medicine from Harvard.

In 1924 he was assigned to the

Fort Benning until 1930, then instructed in the New Hampshire and Massachusetts National Guard
.

In 1932 the position of librarian at the Army Medical Library became available and Hume occupied it until October 1936. While a librarian he wrote an essay for the

ornithologist and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1933. His proposers were Dr William Joseph Maloney, Joseph Wedderburn and fellow-Americans Robert Foster Kennedy and Richard Lightburn Sutton. Curiously he was an Ordinary Fellow rather than Honorary, which required his physical presence in Edinburgh for his induction.[11] At the end of his term as Librarian, Hume was assigned to study at the Medical Field Service School at Carlisle Barracks before becoming Commanding Officer of the Winter General Hospital in Topeka, Kansas. Colonel Hume left the hospital to attend the School of Military Government in Charlottesville
.

In 1943, during the

Allied Military Government for Gen. Mark Clark's 5th Army's Italian sector. Hume accepted the surrender of Naples in September 1943. Following Germany's surrender, in May 1945, he became Chief of the Military Government for the whole US zone of Austria
. He returned to Washington two years later in June 1947.

For the next two years, he served as Chief of the Reorientation Branch within the Civil Affairs Division of the Department of the Army in Washington, D.C. He was awarded the Gorgas Award by the Medical Reserve Corps Association of New York in 1948.[12]

In June 1949 he was appointed

United Nations Command in Korea; and surgeon on the staff of the Supreme Commander for Allied Powers. In July 1950 he became Director-General of Medical Services in Korea a position he held from MacArthur's headquarters in Tokyo
until the end of the Allied occupation.

Retirement and death

Hume came back to the U.S. and retired on 31 December 1951 with the rank of Major General. Three weeks later, on 20 January 1952, as President General of the Society of the Cincinnati, he presented the hereditary membership insignia of the Society to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. (Newsreel of Winston Churchill and Major General Hume Archived 22 October 2019 at the Wayback Machine)

On 24 January 1952, Hume had an aneurysm of the aorta and died the same day at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. General Hume is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.[14]

Personal life

In July 1918, prior to going on active duty in the

First World War, he married Mary Swigert Hendrick of Frankfort who came from a distinguished line of Kentucky pioneer ancestry.[15] She joined him while he was still on duty in Serbia and shared many of his travels. They had a son Edgar Erskine Hume Jr.[16]

Publications

The list of Edgar E Hume's publications reached over four hundred titles. He wrote histories, biographies, science and sociology but also critical and philosophical essays.

Awards and decorations

At the battle of Vittorio Veneto, he was wounded and received his first medal for heroism. He was wounded twice in Italy during World War II and twice in Korea. By the time he reached the end of his career, he was the most decorated medical officer in the Army.

United States

Foreign

Major General Edgar E Hume was decorated by 37 countries in Europe and Latin America.

Promotions

First lieutenant, Officer Reserve Corps: September 16, 1916
First lieutenant, Regular Army: April 4, 1917
Captain, Regular Army: March 28, 1918
Major, Regular Army: May 1, 1918
Lieutenant colonel, temporary: October 1, 1918
Major, Regular Army: June 9, 1920
(Reverted to permanent rank.)
Lieutenant colonel, Regular Army: January 14, 1937
Colonel, Army of the United States: June 26, 1941
Colonel, Regular Army: January 14, 1943
Brigadier general, Army of the United States: January 27, 1944
Colonel, Regular Army: February 1, 1946
(Reverted to permanent rank.)
Brigadier general, Regular Army: April 27, 1948
Major general, Army of the United States: April 27, 1948
Major general, Retired List: December 31, 1951

Source: U.S. Army Register, 1948.[20]

Affiliations

References

  1. ^ a b Wyndham D. Miles; National Institutes of Health (U.S.); National Library of Medicine (U.S.) (1982), A History of the National Library of Medicine: The Nation's Treasury of Medical Knowledge, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, p. 259
  2. ^ William Everett Brockman (1916). History of the Hume, Kennedy and Brockman Families: In Three Parts. Press of Chas. H. Potter. pp. 45–.
  3. ^ a b Kappa Alpha Order (1920). The Kappa Alpha Journal. Kappa Alpha Order. p. 16.
  4. ^ Journal of the American Medical Association. American Medical Association. 1919. p. 622.
  5. ^ The Military Surgeon: Journal of the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States. The Association. 1921. p. 197.
  6. ISBN 978-0-16-083969-6
    .
  7. ^ Early American History, Hume and Allied Families, W.E. Brockman, 1926
  8. ^ Current Biography 1944. H.W. Wilson Company. 1944. p. 316.
  9. ^ Health, JH Bloomberg School of Public (6 November 2012). "The Founding of Delta Omega - History - Delta Omega - Alumni Associations - Alumni". Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
  10. ^ Historical notes on Delta Omega founding summarized from Shorb, Gerald (1991). "A History of the Delta Omega Honorary Public Health Society" (PDF). Amazon AWS. self-published., accessed 2 May 2021.
  11. ISBN 0-902-198-84-X. Archived from the original
    (PDF) on 24 January 2013. Retrieved 15 November 2016.
  12. ^ Herbert Brook (1956). The Blue Book of Awards. Marquis – Who's Who.
  13. ^ United States. Congress (1952). Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the ... Congress. U.S. Government Printing Office. p. 531.
  14. ^ Burial Detail: Hume, Edgar E – ANC Explorer
  15. ^ Alice Elizabeth Trabue (1922). A Corner in Celebrities. Geo. G. Fetter Company. pp. 60–.
  16. ^ The American Army and Navy Journal, and Gazette of the Regular, National Guard and Reserve Forces. American Army and Navy Journal Incorporated. 1922. p. 878.
  17. ^ Current Biography. H.W. Wilson Company. 1944. p. 316.
  18. ^ Kentucky Historical Society (1921). The Register. etc. pp. 51–.
  19. ^ Brockman, William Everett (1994). "Early American history : Hume and allied families". Internet Archive. Retrieved 19 January 2021.
  20. ^ United States Army Register. 1948. Vol. 1. pg. 880.

External links

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