The study of public health in Louisiana began in the early 19th century, when
New Orleans suffered from endemic
malaria and almost yearly epidemics of
cholera and
yellow fever. Attempts to control tropical diseases led to the establishment of the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834, founded by a group of young practicing physicians. The founders issued a prospectus that emphasized the lack of knowledge of these diseases and the necessity to study them in the environment in which they occurred. In 1881, formal instruction in hygiene was offered for the first time.
Samuel Zemurray provided financial support for the founding of the country's first School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine at Tulane in 1912. Known as "Sam the Banana Man," Zemurray backed the institution in part given his own business interests in the banana industry in Honduras, which were at the time greatly affected by diseases like yellow fever. His banana schemes also prompted him to organize and support a military coup at around the same time against Honduran President
Miguel R. Dávila in order to restore
Manuel Bonilla to power, since Bonilla offered favorable tax breaks and railway concessions for Zemurray's business interests. As part of his work in Honduras, Zemurray contracted with
United Fruit Company, which was also one of the first financial backers of the School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The school's launch in 1912 was significant, and as it was part of the movement to establish similar institutions around the world. It was hailed by academicians nationally and internationally as the first such school in the United States, where tropical diseases had had devastating effects, particularly in the
South. The first Doctor of Public Health degree was conferred in 1914, well before the founding of any other school of public health. Later, in 1919, the School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine merged back into the
College of Medicine. The departments of tropical medicine and preventive medicine then merged to establish the department of tropical medicine and public health. Tulane joined the
Council on Education of Public Health in 1947. With public health and tropical medicine rapidly expanding, an administrative division of graduate public health was created in 1958, and was re-designated as the Division of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 1961. In 1967, the Hygiene and Tropical Medicine interests reverted to being its own entity of Tulane University and became today's iteration of the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. On September 18, 2024, the school was renamed the "Celia Scott Weatherhead School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine" after philanthropist and Tulane alum, Celia Scott Weatherhead, in recognition of her landmark total lifetime giving of more than $160 million in support of the university. ==Departments==