author
Charles Poindexter Wertenbaker
1860–1916
A physician and public health officer, he wrote practical early-20th-century works on tuberculosis prevention and community health. His surviving publications reflect a career shaped by medicine, public service, and a strong interest in public-health education.
1 Audiobook
A Working Plan for Colored Antituberculosis Leagues
by Charles Poindexter Wertenbaker
About the author
Born in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 1860, Charles Poindexter Wertenbaker trained as a physician and went on to serve in the United States Public Health and Marine-Hospital Service. Archival records at the University of Virginia describe his letterbooks from 1889 to 1913 as documenting his work while he was a medical officer in command in Wilmington, North Carolina, and Norfolk, Virginia.
He is best remembered in print for public-health writing rather than for fiction. Project Gutenberg lists a number of his works, including A Working Plan for Colored Antituberculosis Leagues, which shows his focus on tuberculosis prevention, organization, and public education during a period when contagious disease was a major national concern.
Wertenbaker died in 1916. Reliable biographical details available online are fairly limited, but the record that does survive presents him as a doctor-writer whose books grew directly out of hands-on public-health service.