THE ARMY MEDICAL BULLETIN, NUMBER 56 (APRIL 1941)
Roger Brooke
Brigadier General, Medical Department, U. S. Army
Assistant to The Surgeon General
(June 14, 1878-December 18, 1940)
Roger Brooke, Brigadier General, U. S. Army, died at the Walter Reed General Hospital in Washington on December 18, 1940, of a heart ailment. He was born at Sandy Spring, Maryland, on June 14, 1878, the son of Roger and Louisa (Thomas) Brooke. After graduating from the George School at Newton, Pa., he entered the medical school of the University of Maryland, in Baltimore, where he graduated in 1900. He joined the medical corps of the Army on June 29, 1901, as a first lieutenant, passed through the various grades and was appointed a brigadier general on January 29, 1938. After graduating from the Army Medical School in the class of 1902 he had a tour of duty in the Philippines. Other early service included duty at Fort Bayard, N. M., at the Letterman General Hospital in San Francisco, at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and as attending surgeon in Washington. He spent the period of the World War in instruction work, serving from September 1917 to December 1918, first as a senior instructor and later as commanding officer of the Medical Officers Training Camp at Camp Greenleaf, Georgia, where 10,000 officers and 70,000 enlisted men were prepared for service with the armed forces. For this service he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal.
Later tours of duty included the office of The Surgeon General where he was chief of the tuberculosis section, division of medicine; the Veterans’ Bureau, as chief medical consultant; at Gorgas Hospital in the Canal Zone, and at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, where he was commanding officer of the large station hospital. Brought again to the office of The Surgeon General in 1935 he was placed in charge of the professional service division. While on this duty he was promoted to brigadier general and sent to the command of Letterman General Hospital. He was later transferred to the post of commandant of the Medical Field Service School at Carlisle Barracks; Pa., his station at the time of his death.
Early in his army career, General Brooke interested himself in internal medicine and became well recognized as one of the foremost in that field that the Corps has produced. Well versed in the study of tuberculosis from his early service at Fort Bayard, he instituted the overseas recruit depot at Fort Slocum, N. Y., in 1935, the first routine examination of the chest by x-ray in the military service. He was a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, and of the American College of Physicians, a member of the American Medical Association, the American Society of Tropical Medicine, the National Tuberculosis Association and the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States. He contributed a number of articles to the pages of the Military Surgeon and to other medical journals.
General Brooke was married in 1905, at Baltimore, to Grace M. Macomb of that city, who, with a son, Roger, of San Francisco, survives him.
In the death of General Brooke the Medical Corps loses one of its exceptional students of medicine, one whose interest in the advances of his profession never flagged from the day of his graduation. He had a gift of vision of the possibilities of disease prevention. He was quiet spoken, gentle in manner, modest and unassuming in the exercise of his great talents. He leaves a host of devoted friends who will long remember him for his notable qualities and for the simple strength of his character. The funeral services were held on December 20, 1940, at the Fort Myer Chapel, the Rev. Ivan L. Bennett, Chaplain, U. S. Army, officiating. Burial was in Arlington Cemetery.
J. M. P.
[James M. Phalen
Colonel, Medical Corps, US Army, Retired
Editor]
Roger Brooke
Education
Graduate, George High School, Newton, Pennsylvania
MD, University of Maryland Medical School, Baltimore, Maryland 1900
Graduate, U.S. Army Medical School, Washington, D.C. 1902
Promotions
1st Lt (Assistant Surgeon) 29 June 1901
Captain (Assistant Surgeon) 29 June 1906
Captain, Medical Corps, Regular Army 29 June 1906
Major 28 January 1910
Lt. Colonel 15 May 1917
Colonel, Medical Corps, National Army 19 December 1917
Colonel, Medical Corps, Regular Army 29 June 1927
Brigadier General 29 January 1938
Commemoration
Brooke General Hospital, Fort Sam Houston, Texas, 4 September 1942
Brooke Army Medical Center, ?
Editor
