Introduction: Waging health: The U.S. Army medical officer's quest for identity and legitimacy -- Practice, status, public health and the Army medical officer, 1818-1890 -- The medical officer in "The new school of scientific medicine", 1861-1898 -- The other war of 1898: the Army Medical Department's struggle with disease in the Volunteer Camps -- Making the tropics fit for white men: Army public health in the American Imperial Periphery, 1898-1914 -- The ascendance of sanitation in the Army Medical Department and the quest for preparedness, 1901-1917 -- Vice and the soldier: the Army Medical Department and public health as morality, 1890-1917.