Edward Francis (1872-1957) was born and educated in Ohio. He received his medical degree from the University of Cincinnati in 1897 and began a career in bacteriology with the U.S. Public Health Service in 1900 at the Hygiene Laboratory in Washington, D.C. Dr. Francis studied and wrote on yellow fever, pellagra, tetanus, filariasis, and undulant fever, but is best known for his research on tularemia. His studies during the 1920s proved the connection between deer-fly fever and tularemia, which had been identified in the United States by PHS doctors George McCoy and Charles Chapin. He further identified seven different types of tularemia. In honor of his contributions the name of the tularemia pathogen, Bacterium tularense, was renamed Francisella tularensis. Dr. Francis served as medical director of the Hygiene Laboratory from 1930 until his retirement in 1938.
From the guide to the Edward Francis Papers, 1925-1945, (History of Medicine Division. National Library of Medicine)
