Wilbur Downs

Wilbur George Downs (7 August 1913, in Perth Amboy, New Jersey – 17 February 1991, in Branford, Connecticut), was a naturalist and virologist.

Downs graduated from Cornell Medical College in medicine in 1938 after studying tropical parasitology with Pedro Kouri at the University of Havana, Cuba. He went to Trinidad and Tobago, B.W.I. in 1941 and studied malaria there until 1943 when he was inducted into the U.S. Army as a 1st Lieutenant. His epidemiological survey of malaria in Trinidad and Tobago in 1941-1943 is one of the classic works in the field.

Downs served as Malaria Control Officer in the New Hebrides, Russell Islands and New Georgia. In 1944 he went to Bougainville and in 1945 became Acting Chief of Preventive Medicine on Okinawa, as well as spending time in Guam. He was awarded the Bronze Star and Presidential and military citations for his work with malaria and communicable tropical diseases.

His interests were extremely wide-ranging and his curiosity insatiable. By the end of World War II he was one of the world's most experienced researchers in a wide range of tropical diseases including malaria, venereal diseases, dengue fever, leprosy, filariasis, scrub typhus, leprosy, intestinal parasites, fungal infections, tuberculosis, and more.

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