During the influenza pandemic, the Surgeon General of the Public
Health Service was Rupert Blue. A southerner, Blue was born in
1868 and grew up in South Carolina. In 1892, he received his
medical degree from the University of Maryland and entered the
Public Health Service. Blue's early years in the service were
spent performing medical inspections of immigrants to ensure
that epidemic diseases were not imported into the United States.
When bubonic plague struck San Francisco in 1902 and then again
in 1907, Blue oversaw rat eradication and urban sanitation
programs there. A skilled diplomat, Blue worked with state and
local officials to sponsor public education programs. These
campaigns proved to be highly successful and they ultimately
allowed federal authorities to avoid imposing a quarantine on
the city and state. In 1912, President William Howard Taft
nominated Blue to serve as Surgeon General, a position Blue held
until 1919. Under Blue's leadership, researchers at the PHS
discovered the root causes of d