13 Facts About Rupert Blue

Rupert Lee Blue was an American physician and soldier.

Rupert Blue was the fourth Surgeon General of the United States from 1912 to 1920.

Rupert Blue was born in Richmond County, North Carolina, and raised in Marion, South Carolina.

The majority of Rupert Blue's work consisted of acting as a mediator between the various branches of government who at the time were conflicted on their opinions of whether or not the bubonic plague was actually present in San Francisco.

When he wasn't trapping rats and squirrels in California, Rupert Blue directed mosquito eradication efforts to control yellow fever in New Orleans, at the Jamestown Exposition, and in Honolulu, to help Hawaii prepare for traffic to follow the opening of the new Panama Canal.

Rupert Blue was promoted to the position of Surgeon, and after Wyman died unexpectedly, President William Howard Taft nominated Blue to serve as Surgeon General.

Rupert Blue would go on to serve a second four-year term under President Woodrow Wilson.

Rupert Blue inherited the Act of 1912, which reoriented PHS toward research and public campaigns against disease.

Rupert Blue had applauded President Wilson's Executive Order making PHS an arm of the military, and subsequent moves to set officers' pay and benefits on a par with those of the armed forces, but did not see passage of legislation creating a PHS Reserve Corps until October 1918, well into the flu pandemic.

Rupert Blue spoke not only as Surgeon General and on behalf of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officers but as President of the American Medical Association.

Rupert Blue resumed the rank of Assistant Surgeon General and was assigned to Paris, France, to oversee PHS operations in Europe and to serve as US delegate to the Office International d'Hygiene Public and subsequently to the League of Nations.

Rupert Blue was advanced to the rank of Vice Admiral in 1942.

Rupert Blue died on 12 April 1948, in Charleston, South Carolina.