Hugh Smith Cumming (August 17, 1869 – December 20, 1948) was an American physician, and soldier. He served as the fifth Surgeon General of the United States from 1920 to 1936. Biography Early life Cumming was born in Hampton, Virginia. He received his undergraduate education at Baltimore City College and then obtained medical degrees from the University of Virginia School of Medicine in 1893, where he was a member of the Chi Phi Fraternity, and the University College of Medicine (in Richmond, Virginia) in 1894 (the latter while serving as house doctor at St. Luke's Hospital in Richmond). In 1894, he obtained a commission as an Assistant Surgeon in the Marine Hospital Service, which was to become the Public Health Service and Marine Hospital Service in 1902 and then the Public Health Service in 1912. Career Cumming was assigned to a variety of posts during his early career in the Service, especially quarantine stations in the South and on the West Coast of the United States. He also served on immigration duty at Ellis Island, New York. For 3 years, from February 1906 to February 1909, Cumming was detailed to the office of the United States Consul General in Yokohama, Japan, where he was concerned with immigration and quarantinable diseases. From 1913 to 1919, he was assigned to the Hygienic Laboratory (forerunner of the National Institutes of Health) in Washington, DC. There he was placed in charge of an investigation of the pollution of tidal waters of Maryland and Virginia. One of his concerns was the shellfish industry, and the potential threat to human health from consuming oysters grown in waters polluted with sewage. During World War I, Cumming was assigned to the United States Navy as a sanitary advisor. He was later ordered to Europe to study the sanitary conditions of the ports from which troops would embark and to confer with military authorities to take the necessary action to prevent the introduction of disease into the United States by returning troops. He was also a member of the Typhus Fever Commission to Poland. Surgeon General On 3 March 1920, Cumming was appointed Surgeon General of the United States Public Health Service. The Public Health Service (PHS) had been given the task in 1919 of providing health care for veterans, and the Service was still expanding and adjusting to this new responsibility when Cumming took office. In 1922, however,