The first large conceptual overview of the role of the US Army Medical Department in American society during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this book details the institutional culture and quest for legitimacy of an institution dedicated to promoting public health and scientific medicine in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 'For anyone who has wondered how the US Army Medical Department grew to achieve so much after such a baptism of fire in the Civil War, this book will fill in many of the gaps and complete a riveting story.' - Nicholas Coni, Royal Society of Medicine 'Although not the first study of the U.S. Army Medical Department in recent decades, this is nonetheless a superb piece of research. Its strength lies in the author's choice to focus not on combat medicine but rather on the transformative efforts of several talented surgeons general, and the endeavors of their sanitarians and researchers to achieve identity and gain legitimacy from the army and the public. The path to legitimacy, while strewn with impediments that Bobby A. Wintermute expertly details, was largely laid out by the time of America's entry into World War II.' - John S. Haller Jr., Emeritus, Journal of American History,Southern Illinois University, USA 'Bobby A. Wintermute's new book consciously eschews battlefield medicine to demonstrate how military physicians used the field of public health to attain and maintain professional status in their separate-and sometimes competing-realms. In so doing, he has created a valuable resource for military and medical historians alike.' - CHOICE