Gerald B. Webb, M.D.
Brief Bio
Gerald Bertram Webb (1871–1948) was the first president of the American Association of Immunologists, serving from 1913 to 1915. He founded the Colorado Foundation for Research in Tuberculosis (now the Webb-Waring Center at the University of Colorado School of Medicine) in 1924 and established himself as an international authority on the treatment of tuberculosis.
An Englishman, Webb began his medical studies at Guy’s Hospital in London before immigrating to the United States with his American wife in 1894, when she was diagnosed with tuberculosis. They settled in Colorado Springs, hoping the mountain air and temperate climate would lead to her recovery. Webb earned his M.D. at the University of Denver in 1896 and opened a private practice in Colorado Springs. Following the death of his wife in 1903 and his own near-fatal bout with infection two years later, Webb took a sabbatical from his practice in 1905 to pursue postdoctoral research in European laboratories, including Sir Almroth Wright’s (AAI ’14) laboratory at St Mary’s Hospital in London, where he spent several months studying opsonins and vaccines. Upon his return to the United States in 1907, Webb limited his practice to tuberculosis treatment and opened a private research laboratory in his home. In 1924, he founded the Colorado Foundation for Research in Tuberculosis when he moved his laboratory to a basement at Colorado College. Webb was a pillar of the medical community in Colorado Springs for over a half century, helping found Cragmor and Sunnyrest Sanatoria and serving on the medical staffs of Union Printers’ Home, Glockner Sanatorium (now Penrose Hospital), and St. Francis Hospital, while maintaining his private practice and heading the Colorado Foundation for Research in Tuberculosis. The foundation was renamed in Webb’s honor following his death from a heart attack on January 27, 1948.
AAI Service History
Joined: 1913
President: 1913–1915
President's Message
"
The History of Immunity," Delivered June 22, 1914
Abstract in Medical Record 86, no. 22 (1914): 945.
Awards and Honors
Institutional/Biographical Links