Hermann Biggs

An American physician and public health administrator who helped bring the new science of bacteriology into everyday disease prevention and control. As director of the bacteriological laboratories of the New York City health department beginning in 1892, and later as the city's general medical officer and New York State Commissioner of Health, Biggs built one of the first public health laboratory systems in the United States and used it to drive tuberculosis control and communicable disease reporting programs that became national models. He also established the first school nursing program in any American city, employing nine nurses in Manhattan to address child health directly in the classroom. His international standing was recognized with a knighthood from the King of Spain for his work in preventive medicine, and his name is honored among the pioneers of public health on the frieze of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.