Son of Johann Jacob ("Jake") GEIGER and of Félonize Céline ("Celina") LEVY Geiger (both buried in the old Rapides Cemetery, Pineville, Rapides, LA). He was twice married.
His first wife was Florence Clay GOURRIER Geiger (buried in the old Rapides Cemetery, Pineville, Rapides, LA), with whom he had two sons: Dr. James Metz ("Jim") GEIGER and John Casson GEIGER (both of whose burials are as yet unknown).
His second wife was Anna Elsie ("Anne") MORSE Geiger (buried with him in the same family mausoleum), with whom he had one daughter, Anita Celine GEIGER Bordwell (buried in Riverside National Cemetery, Riverside, Riverside, CA).
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Dr. Jacob Casson ("Jake") GEIGER was named after his father and after Dr. John CASSON, one of the early physicians of Alexandria, Rapides, LA, who was an associate and friend of his father, the druggist Johann Jacob ("Jake") GEIGER.
Dr. GEIGER continued the tradition by giving his younger son the middle name Casson.
His brother Henry's youngest son was named Casson, too, and Casson was the name he used.
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Article taken from the Alexandria Daily Town Talk of 26 October 1918:
Dr. J. C. Geiger of the U. S. Public Health Service, Little Rock, Ark., who was the guest of Mr. and Mrs. J. C. Selser, expected to go to New Orleans today, en route to Washington, D. C. He left his two little sons with his mother, Mrs. C. Geiger, in this city. They are stopping with Mr. and Mrs. Selser.
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Article taken from the Oakland Tribune of 17 September 1931:
HEALTH OFFICER CHOSEN BY S. F.
SAN FRANCISCO. Sept. 17. - Dr. Jacob C. Geiger, University of California scientist, today holds the post of San Francisco health officer, succeeding the late Dr. William C. Hassler, through an appointment voted last night by the board of health.
The appointment, which goes into effect immediately, carries a salary of $9000 a year. The salary advances to $10,000 a year when the new charter goes into effect next January.
Dr. Geiger was recommended for the post by a committee of leading San Francisco physicians appointed by Mayor Angelo J. Rossi to choose Dr. Hassler's successor. The advisory committee included Dr. Langley R. Porter, Dr. William Ophuls, Dr. Charles Mathe, Dr. John Gallwey, and Dr. W. P. Shepard.
The board of health named Dr. Jacques P. Gray, acting health officer, as assistant to Dr. Geiger.
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Article in the American Journal of Public Health (date unknown), pp. 1247f.
EDITORIAL SECTION
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH
THE HEALTH OFFICER OF SAN FRANCISCO
The appointment of Jacob C. Geiger, M.D., by the San Francisco Board of Health and Mayor Angelo J. Rossi, as Health Officer for the City and County of San Francisco, to succeed the late William C. Hassler, M.D., is an event of more than usual importance from the standpoint of public health. The Mayor has followed the lead of Governor Pollard, of Virginia, and Governor Roosevelt, of New York State, in selecting a health officer on merit, regardless of political considerations.
Following Dr. Hassler's death, the Mayor sent a memorandum to the Board of Health stating that political affiliations and party lines should be laid aside in the search for a suitable successor. He pointed out that Dr. Hassler had served 31 years in the Health Department, 15 of which were as City Health Officer, and that his efforts had resulted in the development of a department of unusually high standards. He felt that the board owed it to Dr. Hassler's memory to let nothing interfere with the selection of the most competent man available. He also showed his recognition of the importance of public health work in putting fitness above political considerations.
The Mayor also suggested the appointment of an advisory committee consisting of the Deans of the University of California and Stanford Medical Schools, the President of the County Medical Society, the Chairman of the San Francisco Health Council, and others, to consult with the Board of Health in the selection of the best fitted candidate. After a careful study of all sides of the question and the qualifications presented by some 10 candidates, the committee unanimously recommended Dr. Geiger. The San Francisco Chronicle quotes Mayor Rossi as follows:
San Francisco is to be congratulated on the appointment of Dr. Geiger as Health Officer. I was deeply concerned in the selection of a man who would be a worthy successor of the late Dr. Hassler, who brought our Health Department to its presert state of recognized efficiency.
In the selection of Dr. Geiger neither politics nor influence played any part. Guarding the health of our population is too serious a problem to admit of any criterion in the selection of a health officer other than outstanding and recognized ability in this highly specialized department of medical science.
Dr. Geiger is a native of Louisiana. He was graduated with the degree of Doctor of Medicine from the Medical Department of Tulane University in 1912. He was for 8 years Director of the Laboratory of the California State Board of Health, and for 5 years Executive Officer and Deputy Health Commissioner of Chicago. In addition to his degree of Doctor of Medicine, he holds the honorary degree of Doctor of Public Health, which was conferred on him for important research on mosquito control. More recently he has been Professor of Epidemiology of the University of California Medical School and the George William Hooper Foundation for Medical Research. During the World War he served with the U. S. Public Health Service at Camp Pike, Ark., on mosquito control work. Later he became epidemiologist for the commission which studied botulism under the direction of Professor Jordan of the University of Chicago. In this work he traveled over a large part of the United States investigating many outbreaks of food poisoning. Dr. Geiger is epidemiologist to the Southern Pacific Railway and the Dollar Line of steamships. In this latter capacity, during the summer of 1931, he made a trip to the Orient for the purpose of studying ventilation on immigrant ships. It will be remembered that many cases of meningitis have occurred among immigrants on ships from the Orient, especially the Filipinos. The study was made particularly in view of this fact.
Dr. Geiger has had a wide and varied experience in public health work, and we can congratulate the City of San Francisco in obtaining the services of so competent a scientist as well as an executive. Let us hope that the enlightened action of Mayor Rossi will soon be the rule and not the exception, assuring communities of merit, and worthy officers of security of tenure.
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Biographical article taken from http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~npmelton/sfbgeig.htm:
San Francisco County
Biographies
JACOB C. GEIGER, M. D.
One may note from the subsequent paragraphs that the medical career of Dr. Jacob C. Geiger, who now holds the responsible position of city health officer of San Francisco, California, is one filled with notable achievements in public health service in this country and abroad, in the United States governmental service, in important civic and state assignments, and with the Universities of California and of Chicago. Dr. Geiger was born on his father's plantation, known as the "Bull Run" plantation, in the Rapides parish near Alexandria, Louisana. He is a son of Jacob Valentine Geiger [sic] and Celine (Hernandez [sic]) Geiger, representatives of the most respected of southern German and Spanish families.
Dr. Geiger attended the grade and high schools in Alexandria, Louisana, and preparatory school in New Orleans. He studied for a period at Soule College, then entered Tulane University in New Orleans, and from this notable southern institution received three degrees, his Bachelor of Arts in 1905, his Master of Arts in 1908, and his Doctor of Medicine in 1912. The honorary degree of Doctor of Public Health was conferred upon him in 1919.
After receiving his medical diploma, Dr. Geiger served his interneship (sic) in large hospitals. He received an appointment to Charing Cross, the London City Hospital, in England, but instead he accepted the offer to teach at the University of California. Here he was an instructor in the department of hygiene; was director of the bureau of laboratories of the state department of public health when it was merged with the bureau of communicable diseases; and became active director, then assistant professor, of the department of hygiene. Dr. Geiger performed distinctive service while associated with the university and the state at this time. During the interval from 1912 until 1915 he established the Pasteur Institute for treatment against rabies and administered the treatment in over eighteen hundred cases as a preventive of disease.
In the year 1915, Dr. Geiger became an officer in the United States public health service, and was assigned to duty on the Mexican border at the time of the threatened warfare there. In 1916, he was reassigned to the Marine Hospital in New Orleans, and was placed in charge of the experimental work for the control of mosquitoes in the rice fields of the world. Then came the United States' declaration of war against the German empire, and he was assigned to take charge of cantonment sanitation at Camp Pike, Little Rock, Arkansas, which duty was also extended to other cantonments in that state. His public health department service extended to the Eighty-seventh and Eighty-ninth Divisons. Dr. Geiger was commissioned a surgeon in the medical reserve corps in 1919, and this commission was renewed August 7, 1924, as senior surgeon, which corresponds to the rank of lieutenant colonel in the United States Army. His active service throughout the war was on a commissioned status.
In 1919, Dr. Geiger was reassigned to the University of California, for the purpose of studying the conditions of the rice fields near Chico, California. The public health department sent him to Florida in 1919-20, but on account of the urgent request of Governor Hiram Johnson of California he was returned to this state to work with the botulism commission, of which he became a member. He assisted in solving all the canning difficulties in the state from this dreaded poison, and then was assigned to the University of Chicago, at the request of that institution, to take charge of the investigation of food poisoning. He was appointed an associate professor, then full professor, in bacteriology at this university, this period of service having extended from 1922 until 1927. While at this post, he also became assistant health commissioner of the city of Chicago by passing competitive civil service examinations. He held this position from 1924 until 1927. Having been granted a leave of absence by the Chicago department of public health, he returned to the University of California, where he became associate professor of the Hooper Foundation for medical research and of the university medical school. In 1930, his skill was recognized by promotion to a full professorship. Later he was commissioned by the United States government to investigate the ventilation of ships and to study diseases which might be brought in through the Pacific ports. In the conduct of these duties, he visited China, Korea, Japan and Siberia, and acquired much important information. He returned to the United States in September, 1931, and immediately thereafter was appointed city health officer of San Francisco by the board of health. This city post is most important, that of safeguarding the health of the residents, but the qualifications of Dr. Geiger, his experience and accomplishments in the past, indicate unmistakably his fitness for the work.
Dr. Geiger has done extensive research work in the study of rabies, and has written many articles on typhoid fever, botulism, malaria, poliomyelitis, food poisoning, and public health education. No avenue toward the betterment of public health education has he left untraveled. He is a fellow in the American Medical Association; a member of the American Public Health Association; the Chicago Institute of Medicine; the California State Medical Society; and the San Francisco City and County Medical Society.
Dr. Geiger has been twice married, his first wife having been Florence Clay Gourrier, of Plaquemine, Louisana, who passed away in the year 1916 [sic]. By this union there were two children, namely: James, born in Oakland, who is now taking a medical course at the University of California; and John, born in Berkeley, who is a student at the Polytechnic high school of San Francisco. In 1923, Dr. Geiger was married secondly to Miss Anne Morse, a native of Bath, Maine. Their daughter, Anita, who was born in Chicago, is a West Portal grammar school pupil. The family residence is situated at 50 Ventura avenue in San Francisco.
The religious faith of Dr. Geiger is that of the Episcopal Church. He is a thirty-second degree Mason, belonging to the Consistory and Mystic Shrine, and he is a member of the University Faculty Club. The Doctor has a number of diversions and hobbies. He finds his greatest pleasure in the companionship of his family and in the environment of his home. Golf, tennis and gardening are attractive to him, and when opportunity offers mountain climbing is a favorite recreation for him. He has climbed nearly all of the peaks in the American national parks, has covered nearly every range in California, in Alaska, and even the Jungfrau and Matterhorn in Switzerland. Dr. Geiger's popularity wherever he has made contact is indicative of his standing in San Francisco in the years to come, and his ability and experience have inspired the citizens with great confidence in his fitness for his present important position as city health officer.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Source: Byington, Lewis Francis, "History of San Francisco 3 Vols", S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., Chicago, 1931. Vol. 3 Pages 250-253.
© 2008 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
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Newspaper article (exact source unknown):
BUTCHER IN WEST TO BE CHARGED IN HORSE MEAT SALE
By Associated Press
San Francisco, July 9. - A butcher shop supplying several hamburger stands along Ocean Beach has been mixing horse meat with ground beef, Dr. J. C. Geiger, city health director, said Friday.
Fifty pounds of horse meat were confiscated, Geiger reported.
Chief Inspector Bert Crowley said A. Sorensen, operator of the shop, acknowledged using horse meat.
Sale of horse meat for human consumption is a violation of California law.
Geiger said he would charge Sorensen with possession of uninspected meat.
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Copy of an advertisement in the Alex. Daily Town Talk (date unknown):
CRUSADER UNDAUNTED: Dr. J. C. Geiger, Private Physician to the Public
By Max Marshall
The story of a modern crusader - his armor, anything from white lab coat to white tie, his weapons ranging from the lance of medical science to the keen rapier of diplomacy - who fought the battle of better health.
Dr. J. C. Geiger has been cited as "one of Tulane's most distinguished alumni." Max Marshall's fast-paced book tells the story of this colorful man and his colorful career - from his boyhood in New Orleans [sic] through his executive posts in the public health departments of Chicago, Oakland and San Francisco. In it you'll meet Chinese villagers, notables of medicine and public health, business tycoons, gangsters, political bosses, and Philippine head-hunters. Max Marshall gives you a behind-the-scenes view of public health departments at work in his accounts of Dr. Geiger's campaigns against malaria, cholera, plague, and typhoid, and for the pasteurization of milk, purification of water supplies, and safe commercial preparation of food.
But this is only part of the story. Dr. Geiger celebrates his seventy-third birthday with the publication of Crusader Undaunted. Join him in reliving the distinguished career of one of America's most honored men.
Coming November 18 [1958] $3.50
The Macmillan Company
60 Fifth Avenue, New York 11, N.Y.
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Copy of review of taken from Med. Hist. 3 (July 3, 1959): 258.
Crusader Undaunted: Dr. J. C. Geiger, Private Physician to the Public. Max S. Marshall. New York and London: The Macmillan Company, New York, 1958; pp. 246. Frontispiece. 24s. 6d.
To write the biography of a man who is still living is a difficult task, especially for a friend, and some may doubt the wisdom of such an undertaking. Dr. Marshall, Professor of microbiology at the University of California School of Medicine, in a book with a rather journalese title pays a sincere tribute to a great figure in American public health and his fight against malaria, typhoid, typhus, botulism, plague, smallpox, tuberculosis, undulant fever, leprosy, venereal disease, and 'political sepsis'. As benefits a colourful subject, the author's style is colourful, and he tells many amusing stories, but his narrative suffers from being too rambling and containing too much that is trivial.
W. R. Bett
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Article taken from the Oakland Tribune of 16 November 1975:
90th Birthday Honors for Dr. J. C. Geiger
Dr. J. C. Geiger, world-renowned epidemiologist and retired health officer of Oakland and San Francisco, will be honored on his 90th birthday Tuesday at a reception by Chancellor and Mrs. Francis A. Sooy of the University of California in San Francisco.
Dr. Geiger began and ended his long public health career in the Eastbay. He was a professor of bacteriology at the University of California in Berkeley for several years, starting in 1911 and then, after serving as San Francisco's director of public health and institutions from 1931 to 1952, he was appointed Oakland health officer. He retired again in 1955 and served as consultant to the city in the consolidation of the Oakland Health Department with Alameda County until 1959.
He is an emeritus clinical professor of epidemiology in the Department of Microbiology of the U. C. Medical School.
Dr. Geiger holds 38 decorations from countries in the Americas and Europe where he assisted in solving public health problems.
A native of Alexandria, La., Dr. Geiger is a graduate of Tulane University. He and his wife, Anne, live at 2166 34th Ave., San Francisco.
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Obituary taken from the Alexandria Daily Town Talk of 07 November 1981:
Dr. Jacob Geiger
San Francisco - Dr. Jacob Casson Geiger, 95, of San Francisco died Saturday in his home.
He was a native of Alexandria, La. He was a world-renowned public health physician who received numerous awards and honors during his long medical career.
Survivors include two sons, Dr. James Geiger and John C. Geiger, both of California; one daughter, Anita Bordwell of California; 12 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
A memorial service will be at 2 p.m. Friday in the chapel of Grace Episcopal Cathedral. The body will be cremated and the ashes interred in Oak Grove Cemetery, Bath, Maine. Funeral arrangements are handled by Halsted-N. Gray and Co Mortuaries.
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Obituary taken from the San Francisco Chronicle of 10 November 1981:
Noted S. F. Health Chief J. C. Geiger Dies at 95
Dr. J. C. Geiger, the most dynamic and articulate health director San Francisco has known, died Saturday at Ralph K. Davies Medical Center. He was 95.
Dr. Geiger was admitted to the hospital Friday night from his home in the Sunset District.
Acknowledged as one of the world's greatest epidemiologists, Dr. Geiger was a public servant of the old school that holds that all public matters deserve the attention of public men.
When, many years ago, the city was threatened with a smallpox epidemic, Dr. Geiger issued a few sharp directives. Half a million people promptly lined up at stations estabished throughout the city and were vaccinated. Then hundreds wrote Dr. Geiger letters of thanks.
An uninhibited extrovert, Dr. Geiger gave himself to the people. A genius in the field of public relations, he maintained a quality of omnipresence and omniscience until the moment of his death.
Dr. Geiger, christened Jacob Cason [sic], was born in Alexandria, La., Nov. 18, 1885.
He attended both elementary and high schools in his native city and then entered Tulane University in New Orleans. He received his master's degree in 1905 and his medical degree in 1912. Thirty-two years later, upon receiving an honorary degree from Tulane, he was cited as the university's "most distinguished alumnus."
Upon being admitted to practice, Dr. Geiger came to California, where he served as assistant director and acting director of laboratories for the California Board of Health, as well as acting director of the Bureau of Communicable Diseases, from 1913 to 1916.
In 1919, he became a research fellow in medicine at the University of California's Hooper Foundation. In 1922 he was named associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Chicago, a post he held until 1927, when he became a professorial lecturer in epidemiology, a science that deals with the incidence, distribution and control of a disease in a population.
In 1928 he returned to California as associate professor of epidemiology at the Hooper Foundation; in 1930 he was appointed full professor. After that he served as clinical professor of epidemiology at the University of California Medical School; professor of public health and preventive medicine, College of Physicians and Surgeons; lecturer in preventive medicine at the University of Southern California; staff epidemiologist at Mt. Zion Hospital; clinical professor of Public Health at Stanford University Medical School; and consultant in public health to the Southern Pacific, Dollar Steamship Lines, American President Lines and Matson Navigation Co.
In 1930 Dr. Geiger was appointed San Francisco's health officer by a special medical commission. Two years later, when the new charter went into effect, he was appointed to the post of director of public health.
From 1916 to 1936 he held the ranks of surgeon and senior surgeon in the United States Public Health Service, devoting years to the study of such diseases as malaria and leprosy. He also held the rank of lieutenant colonel in the U. S. Army Medical Reserve.
In 1952, when Dr. Geiger resigned as director of public health after serving 21 years at the post, he took a similar post across the bay as Oakland's public health officer. In 1955, Dr. Geiger resigned that job at the age of 70, the mandatory retirement age. He was retained as a consultant to the department, however.
He is survived by three children, Anita Bordwell of Byron, Dr. James Geiger of San Jose, and John Geiger of Pasadena; twelve grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren. His wife, Anne, died in 1977.
A memorial service for Dr. Geiger is scheduled for 2 p.m. Friday at the Chapel of Grace at Grace Cathedral.
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Tulane University, New Orleans, Orleans, LA, awards the Jacob C. Geiger Gold Medal Award for the best doctoral thesis on a problem of public health.
His first wife was Florence Clay GOURRIER Geiger (buried in the old Rapides Cemetery, Pineville, Rapides, LA), with whom he had two sons: Dr. James Metz ("Jim") GEIGER and John Casson GEIGER (both of whose burials are as yet unknown).
His second wife was Anna Elsie ("Anne") MORSE Geiger (buried with him in the same family mausoleum), with whom he had one daughter, Anita Celine GEIGER Bordwell (buried in Riverside National Cemetery, Riverside, Riverside, CA).
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Dr. Jacob Casson ("Jake") GEIGER was named after his father and after Dr. John CASSON, one of the early physicians of Alexandria, Rapides, LA, who was an associate and friend of his father, the druggist Johann Jacob ("Jake") GEIGER.
Dr. GEIGER continued the tradition by giving his younger son the middle name Casson.
His brother Henry's youngest son was named Casson, too, and Casson was the name he used.
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Article taken from the Alexandria Daily Town Talk of 26 October 1918:
Dr. J. C. Geiger of the U. S. Public Health Service, Little Rock, Ark., who was the guest of Mr. and Mrs. J. C. Selser, expected to go to New Orleans today, en route to Washington, D. C. He left his two little sons with his mother, Mrs. C. Geiger, in this city. They are stopping with Mr. and Mrs. Selser.
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Article taken from the Oakland Tribune of 17 September 1931:
HEALTH OFFICER CHOSEN BY S. F.
SAN FRANCISCO. Sept. 17. - Dr. Jacob C. Geiger, University of California scientist, today holds the post of San Francisco health officer, succeeding the late Dr. William C. Hassler, through an appointment voted last night by the board of health.
The appointment, which goes into effect immediately, carries a salary of $9000 a year. The salary advances to $10,000 a year when the new charter goes into effect next January.
Dr. Geiger was recommended for the post by a committee of leading San Francisco physicians appointed by Mayor Angelo J. Rossi to choose Dr. Hassler's successor. The advisory committee included Dr. Langley R. Porter, Dr. William Ophuls, Dr. Charles Mathe, Dr. John Gallwey, and Dr. W. P. Shepard.
The board of health named Dr. Jacques P. Gray, acting health officer, as assistant to Dr. Geiger.
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Article in the American Journal of Public Health (date unknown), pp. 1247f.
EDITORIAL SECTION
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH
THE HEALTH OFFICER OF SAN FRANCISCO
The appointment of Jacob C. Geiger, M.D., by the San Francisco Board of Health and Mayor Angelo J. Rossi, as Health Officer for the City and County of San Francisco, to succeed the late William C. Hassler, M.D., is an event of more than usual importance from the standpoint of public health. The Mayor has followed the lead of Governor Pollard, of Virginia, and Governor Roosevelt, of New York State, in selecting a health officer on merit, regardless of political considerations.
Following Dr. Hassler's death, the Mayor sent a memorandum to the Board of Health stating that political affiliations and party lines should be laid aside in the search for a suitable successor. He pointed out that Dr. Hassler had served 31 years in the Health Department, 15 of which were as City Health Officer, and that his efforts had resulted in the development of a department of unusually high standards. He felt that the board owed it to Dr. Hassler's memory to let nothing interfere with the selection of the most competent man available. He also showed his recognition of the importance of public health work in putting fitness above political considerations.
The Mayor also suggested the appointment of an advisory committee consisting of the Deans of the University of California and Stanford Medical Schools, the President of the County Medical Society, the Chairman of the San Francisco Health Council, and others, to consult with the Board of Health in the selection of the best fitted candidate. After a careful study of all sides of the question and the qualifications presented by some 10 candidates, the committee unanimously recommended Dr. Geiger. The San Francisco Chronicle quotes Mayor Rossi as follows:
San Francisco is to be congratulated on the appointment of Dr. Geiger as Health Officer. I was deeply concerned in the selection of a man who would be a worthy successor of the late Dr. Hassler, who brought our Health Department to its presert state of recognized efficiency.
In the selection of Dr. Geiger neither politics nor influence played any part. Guarding the health of our population is too serious a problem to admit of any criterion in the selection of a health officer other than outstanding and recognized ability in this highly specialized department of medical science.
Dr. Geiger is a native of Louisiana. He was graduated with the degree of Doctor of Medicine from the Medical Department of Tulane University in 1912. He was for 8 years Director of the Laboratory of the California State Board of Health, and for 5 years Executive Officer and Deputy Health Commissioner of Chicago. In addition to his degree of Doctor of Medicine, he holds the honorary degree of Doctor of Public Health, which was conferred on him for important research on mosquito control. More recently he has been Professor of Epidemiology of the University of California Medical School and the George William Hooper Foundation for Medical Research. During the World War he served with the U. S. Public Health Service at Camp Pike, Ark., on mosquito control work. Later he became epidemiologist for the commission which studied botulism under the direction of Professor Jordan of the University of Chicago. In this work he traveled over a large part of the United States investigating many outbreaks of food poisoning. Dr. Geiger is epidemiologist to the Southern Pacific Railway and the Dollar Line of steamships. In this latter capacity, during the summer of 1931, he made a trip to the Orient for the purpose of studying ventilation on immigrant ships. It will be remembered that many cases of meningitis have occurred among immigrants on ships from the Orient, especially the Filipinos. The study was made particularly in view of this fact.
Dr. Geiger has had a wide and varied experience in public health work, and we can congratulate the City of San Francisco in obtaining the services of so competent a scientist as well as an executive. Let us hope that the enlightened action of Mayor Rossi will soon be the rule and not the exception, assuring communities of merit, and worthy officers of security of tenure.
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Biographical article taken from http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~npmelton/sfbgeig.htm:
San Francisco County
Biographies
JACOB C. GEIGER, M. D.
One may note from the subsequent paragraphs that the medical career of Dr. Jacob C. Geiger, who now holds the responsible position of city health officer of San Francisco, California, is one filled with notable achievements in public health service in this country and abroad, in the United States governmental service, in important civic and state assignments, and with the Universities of California and of Chicago. Dr. Geiger was born on his father's plantation, known as the "Bull Run" plantation, in the Rapides parish near Alexandria, Louisana. He is a son of Jacob Valentine Geiger [sic] and Celine (Hernandez [sic]) Geiger, representatives of the most respected of southern German and Spanish families.
Dr. Geiger attended the grade and high schools in Alexandria, Louisana, and preparatory school in New Orleans. He studied for a period at Soule College, then entered Tulane University in New Orleans, and from this notable southern institution received three degrees, his Bachelor of Arts in 1905, his Master of Arts in 1908, and his Doctor of Medicine in 1912. The honorary degree of Doctor of Public Health was conferred upon him in 1919.
After receiving his medical diploma, Dr. Geiger served his interneship (sic) in large hospitals. He received an appointment to Charing Cross, the London City Hospital, in England, but instead he accepted the offer to teach at the University of California. Here he was an instructor in the department of hygiene; was director of the bureau of laboratories of the state department of public health when it was merged with the bureau of communicable diseases; and became active director, then assistant professor, of the department of hygiene. Dr. Geiger performed distinctive service while associated with the university and the state at this time. During the interval from 1912 until 1915 he established the Pasteur Institute for treatment against rabies and administered the treatment in over eighteen hundred cases as a preventive of disease.
In the year 1915, Dr. Geiger became an officer in the United States public health service, and was assigned to duty on the Mexican border at the time of the threatened warfare there. In 1916, he was reassigned to the Marine Hospital in New Orleans, and was placed in charge of the experimental work for the control of mosquitoes in the rice fields of the world. Then came the United States' declaration of war against the German empire, and he was assigned to take charge of cantonment sanitation at Camp Pike, Little Rock, Arkansas, which duty was also extended to other cantonments in that state. His public health department service extended to the Eighty-seventh and Eighty-ninth Divisons. Dr. Geiger was commissioned a surgeon in the medical reserve corps in 1919, and this commission was renewed August 7, 1924, as senior surgeon, which corresponds to the rank of lieutenant colonel in the United States Army. His active service throughout the war was on a commissioned status.
In 1919, Dr. Geiger was reassigned to the University of California, for the purpose of studying the conditions of the rice fields near Chico, California. The public health department sent him to Florida in 1919-20, but on account of the urgent request of Governor Hiram Johnson of California he was returned to this state to work with the botulism commission, of which he became a member. He assisted in solving all the canning difficulties in the state from this dreaded poison, and then was assigned to the University of Chicago, at the request of that institution, to take charge of the investigation of food poisoning. He was appointed an associate professor, then full professor, in bacteriology at this university, this period of service having extended from 1922 until 1927. While at this post, he also became assistant health commissioner of the city of Chicago by passing competitive civil service examinations. He held this position from 1924 until 1927. Having been granted a leave of absence by the Chicago department of public health, he returned to the University of California, where he became associate professor of the Hooper Foundation for medical research and of the university medical school. In 1930, his skill was recognized by promotion to a full professorship. Later he was commissioned by the United States government to investigate the ventilation of ships and to study diseases which might be brought in through the Pacific ports. In the conduct of these duties, he visited China, Korea, Japan and Siberia, and acquired much important information. He returned to the United States in September, 1931, and immediately thereafter was appointed city health officer of San Francisco by the board of health. This city post is most important, that of safeguarding the health of the residents, but the qualifications of Dr. Geiger, his experience and accomplishments in the past, indicate unmistakably his fitness for the work.
Dr. Geiger has done extensive research work in the study of rabies, and has written many articles on typhoid fever, botulism, malaria, poliomyelitis, food poisoning, and public health education. No avenue toward the betterment of public health education has he left untraveled. He is a fellow in the American Medical Association; a member of the American Public Health Association; the Chicago Institute of Medicine; the California State Medical Society; and the San Francisco City and County Medical Society.
Dr. Geiger has been twice married, his first wife having been Florence Clay Gourrier, of Plaquemine, Louisana, who passed away in the year 1916 [sic]. By this union there were two children, namely: James, born in Oakland, who is now taking a medical course at the University of California; and John, born in Berkeley, who is a student at the Polytechnic high school of San Francisco. In 1923, Dr. Geiger was married secondly to Miss Anne Morse, a native of Bath, Maine. Their daughter, Anita, who was born in Chicago, is a West Portal grammar school pupil. The family residence is situated at 50 Ventura avenue in San Francisco.
The religious faith of Dr. Geiger is that of the Episcopal Church. He is a thirty-second degree Mason, belonging to the Consistory and Mystic Shrine, and he is a member of the University Faculty Club. The Doctor has a number of diversions and hobbies. He finds his greatest pleasure in the companionship of his family and in the environment of his home. Golf, tennis and gardening are attractive to him, and when opportunity offers mountain climbing is a favorite recreation for him. He has climbed nearly all of the peaks in the American national parks, has covered nearly every range in California, in Alaska, and even the Jungfrau and Matterhorn in Switzerland. Dr. Geiger's popularity wherever he has made contact is indicative of his standing in San Francisco in the years to come, and his ability and experience have inspired the citizens with great confidence in his fitness for his present important position as city health officer.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Source: Byington, Lewis Francis, "History of San Francisco 3 Vols", S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., Chicago, 1931. Vol. 3 Pages 250-253.
© 2008 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
_________
Newspaper article (exact source unknown):
BUTCHER IN WEST TO BE CHARGED IN HORSE MEAT SALE
By Associated Press
San Francisco, July 9. - A butcher shop supplying several hamburger stands along Ocean Beach has been mixing horse meat with ground beef, Dr. J. C. Geiger, city health director, said Friday.
Fifty pounds of horse meat were confiscated, Geiger reported.
Chief Inspector Bert Crowley said A. Sorensen, operator of the shop, acknowledged using horse meat.
Sale of horse meat for human consumption is a violation of California law.
Geiger said he would charge Sorensen with possession of uninspected meat.
_________
Copy of an advertisement in the Alex. Daily Town Talk (date unknown):
CRUSADER UNDAUNTED: Dr. J. C. Geiger, Private Physician to the Public
By Max Marshall
The story of a modern crusader - his armor, anything from white lab coat to white tie, his weapons ranging from the lance of medical science to the keen rapier of diplomacy - who fought the battle of better health.
Dr. J. C. Geiger has been cited as "one of Tulane's most distinguished alumni." Max Marshall's fast-paced book tells the story of this colorful man and his colorful career - from his boyhood in New Orleans [sic] through his executive posts in the public health departments of Chicago, Oakland and San Francisco. In it you'll meet Chinese villagers, notables of medicine and public health, business tycoons, gangsters, political bosses, and Philippine head-hunters. Max Marshall gives you a behind-the-scenes view of public health departments at work in his accounts of Dr. Geiger's campaigns against malaria, cholera, plague, and typhoid, and for the pasteurization of milk, purification of water supplies, and safe commercial preparation of food.
But this is only part of the story. Dr. Geiger celebrates his seventy-third birthday with the publication of Crusader Undaunted. Join him in reliving the distinguished career of one of America's most honored men.
Coming November 18 [1958] $3.50
The Macmillan Company
60 Fifth Avenue, New York 11, N.Y.
________
Copy of review of taken from Med. Hist. 3 (July 3, 1959): 258.
Crusader Undaunted: Dr. J. C. Geiger, Private Physician to the Public. Max S. Marshall. New York and London: The Macmillan Company, New York, 1958; pp. 246. Frontispiece. 24s. 6d.
To write the biography of a man who is still living is a difficult task, especially for a friend, and some may doubt the wisdom of such an undertaking. Dr. Marshall, Professor of microbiology at the University of California School of Medicine, in a book with a rather journalese title pays a sincere tribute to a great figure in American public health and his fight against malaria, typhoid, typhus, botulism, plague, smallpox, tuberculosis, undulant fever, leprosy, venereal disease, and 'political sepsis'. As benefits a colourful subject, the author's style is colourful, and he tells many amusing stories, but his narrative suffers from being too rambling and containing too much that is trivial.
W. R. Bett
_________
Article taken from the Oakland Tribune of 16 November 1975:
90th Birthday Honors for Dr. J. C. Geiger
Dr. J. C. Geiger, world-renowned epidemiologist and retired health officer of Oakland and San Francisco, will be honored on his 90th birthday Tuesday at a reception by Chancellor and Mrs. Francis A. Sooy of the University of California in San Francisco.
Dr. Geiger began and ended his long public health career in the Eastbay. He was a professor of bacteriology at the University of California in Berkeley for several years, starting in 1911 and then, after serving as San Francisco's director of public health and institutions from 1931 to 1952, he was appointed Oakland health officer. He retired again in 1955 and served as consultant to the city in the consolidation of the Oakland Health Department with Alameda County until 1959.
He is an emeritus clinical professor of epidemiology in the Department of Microbiology of the U. C. Medical School.
Dr. Geiger holds 38 decorations from countries in the Americas and Europe where he assisted in solving public health problems.
A native of Alexandria, La., Dr. Geiger is a graduate of Tulane University. He and his wife, Anne, live at 2166 34th Ave., San Francisco.
_________
Obituary taken from the Alexandria Daily Town Talk of 07 November 1981:
Dr. Jacob Geiger
San Francisco - Dr. Jacob Casson Geiger, 95, of San Francisco died Saturday in his home.
He was a native of Alexandria, La. He was a world-renowned public health physician who received numerous awards and honors during his long medical career.
Survivors include two sons, Dr. James Geiger and John C. Geiger, both of California; one daughter, Anita Bordwell of California; 12 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
A memorial service will be at 2 p.m. Friday in the chapel of Grace Episcopal Cathedral. The body will be cremated and the ashes interred in Oak Grove Cemetery, Bath, Maine. Funeral arrangements are handled by Halsted-N. Gray and Co Mortuaries.
_________
Obituary taken from the San Francisco Chronicle of 10 November 1981:
Noted S. F. Health Chief J. C. Geiger Dies at 95
Dr. J. C. Geiger, the most dynamic and articulate health director San Francisco has known, died Saturday at Ralph K. Davies Medical Center. He was 95.
Dr. Geiger was admitted to the hospital Friday night from his home in the Sunset District.
Acknowledged as one of the world's greatest epidemiologists, Dr. Geiger was a public servant of the old school that holds that all public matters deserve the attention of public men.
When, many years ago, the city was threatened with a smallpox epidemic, Dr. Geiger issued a few sharp directives. Half a million people promptly lined up at stations estabished throughout the city and were vaccinated. Then hundreds wrote Dr. Geiger letters of thanks.
An uninhibited extrovert, Dr. Geiger gave himself to the people. A genius in the field of public relations, he maintained a quality of omnipresence and omniscience until the moment of his death.
Dr. Geiger, christened Jacob Cason [sic], was born in Alexandria, La., Nov. 18, 1885.
He attended both elementary and high schools in his native city and then entered Tulane University in New Orleans. He received his master's degree in 1905 and his medical degree in 1912. Thirty-two years later, upon receiving an honorary degree from Tulane, he was cited as the university's "most distinguished alumnus."
Upon being admitted to practice, Dr. Geiger came to California, where he served as assistant director and acting director of laboratories for the California Board of Health, as well as acting director of the Bureau of Communicable Diseases, from 1913 to 1916.
In 1919, he became a research fellow in medicine at the University of California's Hooper Foundation. In 1922 he was named associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Chicago, a post he held until 1927, when he became a professorial lecturer in epidemiology, a science that deals with the incidence, distribution and control of a disease in a population.
In 1928 he returned to California as associate professor of epidemiology at the Hooper Foundation; in 1930 he was appointed full professor. After that he served as clinical professor of epidemiology at the University of California Medical School; professor of public health and preventive medicine, College of Physicians and Surgeons; lecturer in preventive medicine at the University of Southern California; staff epidemiologist at Mt. Zion Hospital; clinical professor of Public Health at Stanford University Medical School; and consultant in public health to the Southern Pacific, Dollar Steamship Lines, American President Lines and Matson Navigation Co.
In 1930 Dr. Geiger was appointed San Francisco's health officer by a special medical commission. Two years later, when the new charter went into effect, he was appointed to the post of director of public health.
From 1916 to 1936 he held the ranks of surgeon and senior surgeon in the United States Public Health Service, devoting years to the study of such diseases as malaria and leprosy. He also held the rank of lieutenant colonel in the U. S. Army Medical Reserve.
In 1952, when Dr. Geiger resigned as director of public health after serving 21 years at the post, he took a similar post across the bay as Oakland's public health officer. In 1955, Dr. Geiger resigned that job at the age of 70, the mandatory retirement age. He was retained as a consultant to the department, however.
He is survived by three children, Anita Bordwell of Byron, Dr. James Geiger of San Jose, and John Geiger of Pasadena; twelve grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren. His wife, Anne, died in 1977.
A memorial service for Dr. Geiger is scheduled for 2 p.m. Friday at the Chapel of Grace at Grace Cathedral.
________
Tulane University, New Orleans, Orleans, LA, awards the Jacob C. Geiger Gold Medal Award for the best doctoral thesis on a problem of public health.
Son of Johann Jacob ("Jake") GEIGER and of Félonize Céline ("Celina") LEVY Geiger (both buried in the old Rapides Cemetery, Pineville, Rapides, LA). He was twice married.
His first wife was Florence Clay GOURRIER Geiger (buried in the old Rapides Cemetery, Pineville, Rapides, LA), with whom he had two sons: Dr. James Metz ("Jim") GEIGER and John Casson GEIGER (both of whose burials are as yet unknown).
His second wife was Anna Elsie ("Anne") MORSE Geiger (buried with him in the same family mausoleum), with whom he had one daughter, Anita Celine GEIGER Bordwell (buried in Riverside National Cemetery, Riverside, Riverside, CA).
__________
Dr. Jacob Casson ("Jake") GEIGER was named after his father and after Dr. John CASSON, one of the early physicians of Alexandria, Rapides, LA, who was an associate and friend of his father, the druggist Johann Jacob ("Jake") GEIGER.
Dr. GEIGER continued the tradition by giving his younger son the middle name Casson.
His brother Henry's youngest son was named Casson, too, and Casson was the name he used.
__________
Article taken from the Alexandria Daily Town Talk of 26 October 1918:
Dr. J. C. Geiger of the U. S. Public Health Service, Little Rock, Ark., who was the guest of Mr. and Mrs. J. C. Selser, expected to go to New Orleans today, en route to Washington, D. C. He left his two little sons with his mother, Mrs. C. Geiger, in this city. They are stopping with Mr. and Mrs. Selser.
__________
Article taken from the Oakland Tribune of 17 September 1931:
HEALTH OFFICER CHOSEN BY S. F.
SAN FRANCISCO. Sept. 17. - Dr. Jacob C. Geiger, University of California scientist, today holds the post of San Francisco health officer, succeeding the late Dr. William C. Hassler, through an appointment voted last night by the board of health.
The appointment, which goes into effect immediately, carries a salary of $9000 a year. The salary advances to $10,000 a year when the new charter goes into effect next January.
Dr. Geiger was recommended for the post by a committee of leading San Francisco physicians appointed by Mayor Angelo J. Rossi to choose Dr. Hassler's successor. The advisory committee included Dr. Langley R. Porter, Dr. William Ophuls, Dr. Charles Mathe, Dr. John Gallwey, and Dr. W. P. Shepard.
The board of health named Dr. Jacques P. Gray, acting health officer, as assistant to Dr. Geiger.
__________
Article in the American Journal of Public Health (date unknown), pp. 1247f.
EDITORIAL SECTION
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH
THE HEALTH OFFICER OF SAN FRANCISCO
The appointment of Jacob C. Geiger, M.D., by the San Francisco Board of Health and Mayor Angelo J. Rossi, as Health Officer for the City and County of San Francisco, to succeed the late William C. Hassler, M.D., is an event of more than usual importance from the standpoint of public health. The Mayor has followed the lead of Governor Pollard, of Virginia, and Governor Roosevelt, of New York State, in selecting a health officer on merit, regardless of political considerations.
Following Dr. Hassler's death, the Mayor sent a memorandum to the Board of Health stating that political affiliations and party lines should be laid aside in the search for a suitable successor. He pointed out that Dr. Hassler had served 31 years in the Health Department, 15 of which were as City Health Officer, and that his efforts had resulted in the development of a department of unusually high standards. He felt that the board owed it to Dr. Hassler's memory to let nothing interfere with the selection of the most competent man available. He also showed his recognition of the importance of public health work in putting fitness above political considerations.
The Mayor also suggested the appointment of an advisory committee consisting of the Deans of the University of California and Stanford Medical Schools, the President of the County Medical Society, the Chairman of the San Francisco Health Council, and others, to consult with the Board of Health in the selection of the best fitted candidate. After a careful study of all sides of the question and the qualifications presented by some 10 candidates, the committee unanimously recommended Dr. Geiger. The San Francisco Chronicle quotes Mayor Rossi as follows:
San Francisco is to be congratulated on the appointment of Dr. Geiger as Health Officer. I was deeply concerned in the selection of a man who would be a worthy successor of the late Dr. Hassler, who brought our Health Department to its presert state of recognized efficiency.
In the selection of Dr. Geiger neither politics nor influence played any part. Guarding the health of our population is too serious a problem to admit of any criterion in the selection of a health officer other than outstanding and recognized ability in this highly specialized department of medical science.
Dr. Geiger is a native of Louisiana. He was graduated with the degree of Doctor of Medicine from the Medical Department of Tulane University in 1912. He was for 8 years Director of the Laboratory of the California State Board of Health, and for 5 years Executive Officer and Deputy Health Commissioner of Chicago. In addition to his degree of Doctor of Medicine, he holds the honorary degree of Doctor of Public Health, which was conferred on him for important research on mosquito control. More recently he has been Professor of Epidemiology of the University of California Medical School and the George William Hooper Foundation for Medical Research. During the World War he served with the U. S. Public Health Service at Camp Pike, Ark., on mosquito control work. Later he became epidemiologist for the commission which studied botulism under the direction of Professor Jordan of the University of Chicago. In this work he traveled over a large part of the United States investigating many outbreaks of food poisoning. Dr. Geiger is epidemiologist to the Southern Pacific Railway and the Dollar Line of steamships. In this latter capacity, during the summer of 1931, he made a trip to the Orient for the purpose of studying ventilation on immigrant ships. It will be remembered that many cases of meningitis have occurred among immigrants on ships from the Orient, especially the Filipinos. The study was made particularly in view of this fact.
Dr. Geiger has had a wide and varied experience in public health work, and we can congratulate the City of San Francisco in obtaining the services of so competent a scientist as well as an executive. Let us hope that the enlightened action of Mayor Rossi will soon be the rule and not the exception, assuring communities of merit, and worthy officers of security of tenure.
__________
Biographical article taken from http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~npmelton/sfbgeig.htm:
San Francisco County
Biographies
JACOB C. GEIGER, M. D.
One may note from the subsequent paragraphs that the medical career of Dr. Jacob C. Geiger, who now holds the responsible position of city health officer of San Francisco, California, is one filled with notable achievements in public health service in this country and abroad, in the United States governmental service, in important civic and state assignments, and with the Universities of California and of Chicago. Dr. Geiger was born on his father's plantation, known as the "Bull Run" plantation, in the Rapides parish near Alexandria, Louisana. He is a son of Jacob Valentine Geiger [sic] and Celine (Hernandez [sic]) Geiger, representatives of the most respected of southern German and Spanish families.
Dr. Geiger attended the grade and high schools in Alexandria, Louisana, and preparatory school in New Orleans. He studied for a period at Soule College, then entered Tulane University in New Orleans, and from this notable southern institution received three degrees, his Bachelor of Arts in 1905, his Master of Arts in 1908, and his Doctor of Medicine in 1912. The honorary degree of Doctor of Public Health was conferred upon him in 1919.
After receiving his medical diploma, Dr. Geiger served his interneship (sic) in large hospitals. He received an appointment to Charing Cross, the London City Hospital, in England, but instead he accepted the offer to teach at the University of California. Here he was an instructor in the department of hygiene; was director of the bureau of laboratories of the state department of public health when it was merged with the bureau of communicable diseases; and became active director, then assistant professor, of the department of hygiene. Dr. Geiger performed distinctive service while associated with the university and the state at this time. During the interval from 1912 until 1915 he established the Pasteur Institute for treatment against rabies and administered the treatment in over eighteen hundred cases as a preventive of disease.
In the year 1915, Dr. Geiger became an officer in the United States public health service, and was assigned to duty on the Mexican border at the time of the threatened warfare there. In 1916, he was reassigned to the Marine Hospital in New Orleans, and was placed in charge of the experimental work for the control of mosquitoes in the rice fields of the world. Then came the United States' declaration of war against the German empire, and he was assigned to take charge of cantonment sanitation at Camp Pike, Little Rock, Arkansas, which duty was also extended to other cantonments in that state. His public health department service extended to the Eighty-seventh and Eighty-ninth Divisons. Dr. Geiger was commissioned a surgeon in the medical reserve corps in 1919, and this commission was renewed August 7, 1924, as senior surgeon, which corresponds to the rank of lieutenant colonel in the United States Army. His active service throughout the war was on a commissioned status.
In 1919, Dr. Geiger was reassigned to the University of California, for the purpose of studying the conditions of the rice fields near Chico, California. The public health department sent him to Florida in 1919-20, but on account of the urgent request of Governor Hiram Johnson of California he was returned to this state to work with the botulism commission, of which he became a member. He assisted in solving all the canning difficulties in the state from this dreaded poison, and then was assigned to the University of Chicago, at the request of that institution, to take charge of the investigation of food poisoning. He was appointed an associate professor, then full professor, in bacteriology at this university, this period of service having extended from 1922 until 1927. While at this post, he also became assistant health commissioner of the city of Chicago by passing competitive civil service examinations. He held this position from 1924 until 1927. Having been granted a leave of absence by the Chicago department of public health, he returned to the University of California, where he became associate professor of the Hooper Foundation for medical research and of the university medical school. In 1930, his skill was recognized by promotion to a full professorship. Later he was commissioned by the United States government to investigate the ventilation of ships and to study diseases which might be brought in through the Pacific ports. In the conduct of these duties, he visited China, Korea, Japan and Siberia, and acquired much important information. He returned to the United States in September, 1931, and immediately thereafter was appointed city health officer of San Francisco by the board of health. This city post is most important, that of safeguarding the health of the residents, but the qualifications of Dr. Geiger, his experience and accomplishments in the past, indicate unmistakably his fitness for the work.
Dr. Geiger has done extensive research work in the study of rabies, and has written many articles on typhoid fever, botulism, malaria, poliomyelitis, food poisoning, and public health education. No avenue toward the betterment of public health education has he left untraveled. He is a fellow in the American Medical Association; a member of the American Public Health Association; the Chicago Institute of Medicine; the California State Medical Society; and the San Francisco City and County Medical Society.
Dr. Geiger has been twice married, his first wife having been Florence Clay Gourrier, of Plaquemine, Louisana, who passed away in the year 1916 [sic]. By this union there were two children, namely: James, born in Oakland, who is now taking a medical course at the University of California; and John, born in Berkeley, who is a student at the Polytechnic high school of San Francisco. In 1923, Dr. Geiger was married secondly to Miss Anne Morse, a native of Bath, Maine. Their daughter, Anita, who was born in Chicago, is a West Portal grammar school pupil. The family residence is situated at 50 Ventura avenue in San Francisco.
The religious faith of Dr. Geiger is that of the Episcopal Church. He is a thirty-second degree Mason, belonging to the Consistory and Mystic Shrine, and he is a member of the University Faculty Club. The Doctor has a number of diversions and hobbies. He finds his greatest pleasure in the companionship of his family and in the environment of his home. Golf, tennis and gardening are attractive to him, and when opportunity offers mountain climbing is a favorite recreation for him. He has climbed nearly all of the peaks in the American national parks, has covered nearly every range in California, in Alaska, and even the Jungfrau and Matterhorn in Switzerland. Dr. Geiger's popularity wherever he has made contact is indicative of his standing in San Francisco in the years to come, and his ability and experience have inspired the citizens with great confidence in his fitness for his present important position as city health officer.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Source: Byington, Lewis Francis, "History of San Francisco 3 Vols", S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., Chicago, 1931. Vol. 3 Pages 250-253.
© 2008 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
_________
Newspaper article (exact source unknown):
BUTCHER IN WEST TO BE CHARGED IN HORSE MEAT SALE
By Associated Press
San Francisco, July 9. - A butcher shop supplying several hamburger stands along Ocean Beach has been mixing horse meat with ground beef, Dr. J. C. Geiger, city health director, said Friday.
Fifty pounds of horse meat were confiscated, Geiger reported.
Chief Inspector Bert Crowley said A. Sorensen, operator of the shop, acknowledged using horse meat.
Sale of horse meat for human consumption is a violation of California law.
Geiger said he would charge Sorensen with possession of uninspected meat.
_________
Copy of an advertisement in the Alex. Daily Town Talk (date unknown):
CRUSADER UNDAUNTED: Dr. J. C. Geiger, Private Physician to the Public
By Max Marshall
The story of a modern crusader - his armor, anything from white lab coat to white tie, his weapons ranging from the lance of medical science to the keen rapier of diplomacy - who fought the battle of better health.
Dr. J. C. Geiger has been cited as "one of Tulane's most distinguished alumni." Max Marshall's fast-paced book tells the story of this colorful man and his colorful career - from his boyhood in New Orleans [sic] through his executive posts in the public health departments of Chicago, Oakland and San Francisco. In it you'll meet Chinese villagers, notables of medicine and public health, business tycoons, gangsters, political bosses, and Philippine head-hunters. Max Marshall gives you a behind-the-scenes view of public health departments at work in his accounts of Dr. Geiger's campaigns against malaria, cholera, plague, and typhoid, and for the pasteurization of milk, purification of water supplies, and safe commercial preparation of food.
But this is only part of the story. Dr. Geiger celebrates his seventy-third birthday with the publication of Crusader Undaunted. Join him in reliving the distinguished career of one of America's most honored men.
Coming November 18 [1958] $3.50
The Macmillan Company
60 Fifth Avenue, New York 11, N.Y.
________
Copy of review of taken from Med. Hist. 3 (July 3, 1959): 258.
Crusader Undaunted: Dr. J. C. Geiger, Private Physician to the Public. Max S. Marshall. New York and London: The Macmillan Company, New York, 1958; pp. 246. Frontispiece. 24s. 6d.
To write the biography of a man who is still living is a difficult task, especially for a friend, and some may doubt the wisdom of such an undertaking. Dr. Marshall, Professor of microbiology at the University of California School of Medicine, in a book with a rather journalese title pays a sincere tribute to a great figure in American public health and his fight against malaria, typhoid, typhus, botulism, plague, smallpox, tuberculosis, undulant fever, leprosy, venereal disease, and 'political sepsis'. As benefits a colourful subject, the author's style is colourful, and he tells many amusing stories, but his narrative suffers from being too rambling and containing too much that is trivial.
W. R. Bett
_________
Article taken from the Oakland Tribune of 16 November 1975:
90th Birthday Honors for Dr. J. C. Geiger
Dr. J. C. Geiger, world-renowned epidemiologist and retired health officer of Oakland and San Francisco, will be honored on his 90th birthday Tuesday at a reception by Chancellor and Mrs. Francis A. Sooy of the University of California in San Francisco.
Dr. Geiger began and ended his long public health career in the Eastbay. He was a professor of bacteriology at the University of California in Berkeley for several years, starting in 1911 and then, after serving as San Francisco's director of public health and institutions from 1931 to 1952, he was appointed Oakland health officer. He retired again in 1955 and served as consultant to the city in the consolidation of the Oakland Health Department with Alameda County until 1959.
He is an emeritus clinical professor of epidemiology in the Department of Microbiology of the U. C. Medical School.
Dr. Geiger holds 38 decorations from countries in the Americas and Europe where he assisted in solving public health problems.
A native of Alexandria, La., Dr. Geiger is a graduate of Tulane University. He and his wife, Anne, live at 2166 34th Ave., San Francisco.
_________
Obituary taken from the Alexandria Daily Town Talk of 07 November 1981:
Dr. Jacob Geiger
San Francisco - Dr. Jacob Casson Geiger, 95, of San Francisco died Saturday in his home.
He was a native of Alexandria, La. He was a world-renowned public health physician who received numerous awards and honors during his long medical career.
Survivors include two sons, Dr. James Geiger and John C. Geiger, both of California; one daughter, Anita Bordwell of California; 12 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
A memorial service will be at 2 p.m. Friday in the chapel of Grace Episcopal Cathedral. The body will be cremated and the ashes interred in Oak Grove Cemetery, Bath, Maine. Funeral arrangements are handled by Halsted-N. Gray and Co Mortuaries.
_________
Obituary taken from the San Francisco Chronicle of 10 November 1981:
Noted S. F. Health Chief J. C. Geiger Dies at 95
Dr. J. C. Geiger, the most dynamic and articulate health director San Francisco has known, died Saturday at Ralph K. Davies Medical Center. He was 95.
Dr. Geiger was admitted to the hospital Friday night from his home in the Sunset District.
Acknowledged as one of the world's greatest epidemiologists, Dr. Geiger was a public servant of the old school that holds that all public matters deserve the attention of public men.
When, many years ago, the city was threatened with a smallpox epidemic, Dr. Geiger issued a few sharp directives. Half a million people promptly lined up at stations estabished throughout the city and were vaccinated. Then hundreds wrote Dr. Geiger letters of thanks.
An uninhibited extrovert, Dr. Geiger gave himself to the people. A genius in the field of public relations, he maintained a quality of omnipresence and omniscience until the moment of his death.
Dr. Geiger, christened Jacob Cason [sic], was born in Alexandria, La., Nov. 18, 1885.
He attended both elementary and high schools in his native city and then entered Tulane University in New Orleans. He received his master's degree in 1905 and his medical degree in 1912. Thirty-two years later, upon receiving an honorary degree from Tulane, he was cited as the university's "most distinguished alumnus."
Upon being admitted to practice, Dr. Geiger came to California, where he served as assistant director and acting director of laboratories for the California Board of Health, as well as acting director of the Bureau of Communicable Diseases, from 1913 to 1916.
In 1919, he became a research fellow in medicine at the University of California's Hooper Foundation. In 1922 he was named associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Chicago, a post he held until 1927, when he became a professorial lecturer in epidemiology, a science that deals with the incidence, distribution and control of a disease in a population.
In 1928 he returned to California as associate professor of epidemiology at the Hooper Foundation; in 1930 he was appointed full professor. After that he served as clinical professor of epidemiology at the University of California Medical School; professor of public health and preventive medicine, College of Physicians and Surgeons; lecturer in preventive medicine at the University of Southern California; staff epidemiologist at Mt. Zion Hospital; clinical professor of Public Health at Stanford University Medical School; and consultant in public health to the Southern Pacific, Dollar Steamship Lines, American President Lines and Matson Navigation Co.
In 1930 Dr. Geiger was appointed San Francisco's health officer by a special medical commission. Two years later, when the new charter went into effect, he was appointed to the post of director of public health.
From 1916 to 1936 he held the ranks of surgeon and senior surgeon in the United States Public Health Service, devoting years to the study of such diseases as malaria and leprosy. He also held the rank of lieutenant colonel in the U. S. Army Medical Reserve.
In 1952, when Dr. Geiger resigned as director of public health after serving 21 years at the post, he took a similar post across the bay as Oakland's public health officer. In 1955, Dr. Geiger resigned that job at the age of 70, the mandatory retirement age. He was retained as a consultant to the department, however.
He is survived by three children, Anita Bordwell of Byron, Dr. James Geiger of San Jose, and John Geiger of Pasadena; twelve grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren. His wife, Anne, died in 1977.
A memorial service for Dr. Geiger is scheduled for 2 p.m. Friday at the Chapel of Grace at Grace Cathedral.
________
Tulane University, New Orleans, Orleans, LA, awards the Jacob C. Geiger Gold Medal Award for the best doctoral thesis on a problem of public health.
His first wife was Florence Clay GOURRIER Geiger (buried in the old Rapides Cemetery, Pineville, Rapides, LA), with whom he had two sons: Dr. James Metz ("Jim") GEIGER and John Casson GEIGER (both of whose burials are as yet unknown).
His second wife was Anna Elsie ("Anne") MORSE Geiger (buried with him in the same family mausoleum), with whom he had one daughter, Anita Celine GEIGER Bordwell (buried in Riverside National Cemetery, Riverside, Riverside, CA).
__________
Dr. Jacob Casson ("Jake") GEIGER was named after his father and after Dr. John CASSON, one of the early physicians of Alexandria, Rapides, LA, who was an associate and friend of his father, the druggist Johann Jacob ("Jake") GEIGER.
Dr. GEIGER continued the tradition by giving his younger son the middle name Casson.
His brother Henry's youngest son was named Casson, too, and Casson was the name he used.
__________
Article taken from the Alexandria Daily Town Talk of 26 October 1918:
Dr. J. C. Geiger of the U. S. Public Health Service, Little Rock, Ark., who was the guest of Mr. and Mrs. J. C. Selser, expected to go to New Orleans today, en route to Washington, D. C. He left his two little sons with his mother, Mrs. C. Geiger, in this city. They are stopping with Mr. and Mrs. Selser.
__________
Article taken from the Oakland Tribune of 17 September 1931:
HEALTH OFFICER CHOSEN BY S. F.
SAN FRANCISCO. Sept. 17. - Dr. Jacob C. Geiger, University of California scientist, today holds the post of San Francisco health officer, succeeding the late Dr. William C. Hassler, through an appointment voted last night by the board of health.
The appointment, which goes into effect immediately, carries a salary of $9000 a year. The salary advances to $10,000 a year when the new charter goes into effect next January.
Dr. Geiger was recommended for the post by a committee of leading San Francisco physicians appointed by Mayor Angelo J. Rossi to choose Dr. Hassler's successor. The advisory committee included Dr. Langley R. Porter, Dr. William Ophuls, Dr. Charles Mathe, Dr. John Gallwey, and Dr. W. P. Shepard.
The board of health named Dr. Jacques P. Gray, acting health officer, as assistant to Dr. Geiger.
__________
Article in the American Journal of Public Health (date unknown), pp. 1247f.
EDITORIAL SECTION
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH
THE HEALTH OFFICER OF SAN FRANCISCO
The appointment of Jacob C. Geiger, M.D., by the San Francisco Board of Health and Mayor Angelo J. Rossi, as Health Officer for the City and County of San Francisco, to succeed the late William C. Hassler, M.D., is an event of more than usual importance from the standpoint of public health. The Mayor has followed the lead of Governor Pollard, of Virginia, and Governor Roosevelt, of New York State, in selecting a health officer on merit, regardless of political considerations.
Following Dr. Hassler's death, the Mayor sent a memorandum to the Board of Health stating that political affiliations and party lines should be laid aside in the search for a suitable successor. He pointed out that Dr. Hassler had served 31 years in the Health Department, 15 of which were as City Health Officer, and that his efforts had resulted in the development of a department of unusually high standards. He felt that the board owed it to Dr. Hassler's memory to let nothing interfere with the selection of the most competent man available. He also showed his recognition of the importance of public health work in putting fitness above political considerations.
The Mayor also suggested the appointment of an advisory committee consisting of the Deans of the University of California and Stanford Medical Schools, the President of the County Medical Society, the Chairman of the San Francisco Health Council, and others, to consult with the Board of Health in the selection of the best fitted candidate. After a careful study of all sides of the question and the qualifications presented by some 10 candidates, the committee unanimously recommended Dr. Geiger. The San Francisco Chronicle quotes Mayor Rossi as follows:
San Francisco is to be congratulated on the appointment of Dr. Geiger as Health Officer. I was deeply concerned in the selection of a man who would be a worthy successor of the late Dr. Hassler, who brought our Health Department to its presert state of recognized efficiency.
In the selection of Dr. Geiger neither politics nor influence played any part. Guarding the health of our population is too serious a problem to admit of any criterion in the selection of a health officer other than outstanding and recognized ability in this highly specialized department of medical science.
Dr. Geiger is a native of Louisiana. He was graduated with the degree of Doctor of Medicine from the Medical Department of Tulane University in 1912. He was for 8 years Director of the Laboratory of the California State Board of Health, and for 5 years Executive Officer and Deputy Health Commissioner of Chicago. In addition to his degree of Doctor of Medicine, he holds the honorary degree of Doctor of Public Health, which was conferred on him for important research on mosquito control. More recently he has been Professor of Epidemiology of the University of California Medical School and the George William Hooper Foundation for Medical Research. During the World War he served with the U. S. Public Health Service at Camp Pike, Ark., on mosquito control work. Later he became epidemiologist for the commission which studied botulism under the direction of Professor Jordan of the University of Chicago. In this work he traveled over a large part of the United States investigating many outbreaks of food poisoning. Dr. Geiger is epidemiologist to the Southern Pacific Railway and the Dollar Line of steamships. In this latter capacity, during the summer of 1931, he made a trip to the Orient for the purpose of studying ventilation on immigrant ships. It will be remembered that many cases of meningitis have occurred among immigrants on ships from the Orient, especially the Filipinos. The study was made particularly in view of this fact.
Dr. Geiger has had a wide and varied experience in public health work, and we can congratulate the City of San Francisco in obtaining the services of so competent a scientist as well as an executive. Let us hope that the enlightened action of Mayor Rossi will soon be the rule and not the exception, assuring communities of merit, and worthy officers of security of tenure.
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Biographical article taken from http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~npmelton/sfbgeig.htm:
San Francisco County
Biographies
JACOB C. GEIGER, M. D.
One may note from the subsequent paragraphs that the medical career of Dr. Jacob C. Geiger, who now holds the responsible position of city health officer of San Francisco, California, is one filled with notable achievements in public health service in this country and abroad, in the United States governmental service, in important civic and state assignments, and with the Universities of California and of Chicago. Dr. Geiger was born on his father's plantation, known as the "Bull Run" plantation, in the Rapides parish near Alexandria, Louisana. He is a son of Jacob Valentine Geiger [sic] and Celine (Hernandez [sic]) Geiger, representatives of the most respected of southern German and Spanish families.
Dr. Geiger attended the grade and high schools in Alexandria, Louisana, and preparatory school in New Orleans. He studied for a period at Soule College, then entered Tulane University in New Orleans, and from this notable southern institution received three degrees, his Bachelor of Arts in 1905, his Master of Arts in 1908, and his Doctor of Medicine in 1912. The honorary degree of Doctor of Public Health was conferred upon him in 1919.
After receiving his medical diploma, Dr. Geiger served his interneship (sic) in large hospitals. He received an appointment to Charing Cross, the London City Hospital, in England, but instead he accepted the offer to teach at the University of California. Here he was an instructor in the department of hygiene; was director of the bureau of laboratories of the state department of public health when it was merged with the bureau of communicable diseases; and became active director, then assistant professor, of the department of hygiene. Dr. Geiger performed distinctive service while associated with the university and the state at this time. During the interval from 1912 until 1915 he established the Pasteur Institute for treatment against rabies and administered the treatment in over eighteen hundred cases as a preventive of disease.
In the year 1915, Dr. Geiger became an officer in the United States public health service, and was assigned to duty on the Mexican border at the time of the threatened warfare there. In 1916, he was reassigned to the Marine Hospital in New Orleans, and was placed in charge of the experimental work for the control of mosquitoes in the rice fields of the world. Then came the United States' declaration of war against the German empire, and he was assigned to take charge of cantonment sanitation at Camp Pike, Little Rock, Arkansas, which duty was also extended to other cantonments in that state. His public health department service extended to the Eighty-seventh and Eighty-ninth Divisons. Dr. Geiger was commissioned a surgeon in the medical reserve corps in 1919, and this commission was renewed August 7, 1924, as senior surgeon, which corresponds to the rank of lieutenant colonel in the United States Army. His active service throughout the war was on a commissioned status.
In 1919, Dr. Geiger was reassigned to the University of California, for the purpose of studying the conditions of the rice fields near Chico, California. The public health department sent him to Florida in 1919-20, but on account of the urgent request of Governor Hiram Johnson of California he was returned to this state to work with the botulism commission, of which he became a member. He assisted in solving all the canning difficulties in the state from this dreaded poison, and then was assigned to the University of Chicago, at the request of that institution, to take charge of the investigation of food poisoning. He was appointed an associate professor, then full professor, in bacteriology at this university, this period of service having extended from 1922 until 1927. While at this post, he also became assistant health commissioner of the city of Chicago by passing competitive civil service examinations. He held this position from 1924 until 1927. Having been granted a leave of absence by the Chicago department of public health, he returned to the University of California, where he became associate professor of the Hooper Foundation for medical research and of the university medical school. In 1930, his skill was recognized by promotion to a full professorship. Later he was commissioned by the United States government to investigate the ventilation of ships and to study diseases which might be brought in through the Pacific ports. In the conduct of these duties, he visited China, Korea, Japan and Siberia, and acquired much important information. He returned to the United States in September, 1931, and immediately thereafter was appointed city health officer of San Francisco by the board of health. This city post is most important, that of safeguarding the health of the residents, but the qualifications of Dr. Geiger, his experience and accomplishments in the past, indicate unmistakably his fitness for the work.
Dr. Geiger has done extensive research work in the study of rabies, and has written many articles on typhoid fever, botulism, malaria, poliomyelitis, food poisoning, and public health education. No avenue toward the betterment of public health education has he left untraveled. He is a fellow in the American Medical Association; a member of the American Public Health Association; the Chicago Institute of Medicine; the California State Medical Society; and the San Francisco City and County Medical Society.
Dr. Geiger has been twice married, his first wife having been Florence Clay Gourrier, of Plaquemine, Louisana, who passed away in the year 1916 [sic]. By this union there were two children, namely: James, born in Oakland, who is now taking a medical course at the University of California; and John, born in Berkeley, who is a student at the Polytechnic high school of San Francisco. In 1923, Dr. Geiger was married secondly to Miss Anne Morse, a native of Bath, Maine. Their daughter, Anita, who was born in Chicago, is a West Portal grammar school pupil. The family residence is situated at 50 Ventura avenue in San Francisco.
The religious faith of Dr. Geiger is that of the Episcopal Church. He is a thirty-second degree Mason, belonging to the Consistory and Mystic Shrine, and he is a member of the University Faculty Club. The Doctor has a number of diversions and hobbies. He finds his greatest pleasure in the companionship of his family and in the environment of his home. Golf, tennis and gardening are attractive to him, and when opportunity offers mountain climbing is a favorite recreation for him. He has climbed nearly all of the peaks in the American national parks, has covered nearly every range in California, in Alaska, and even the Jungfrau and Matterhorn in Switzerland. Dr. Geiger's popularity wherever he has made contact is indicative of his standing in San Francisco in the years to come, and his ability and experience have inspired the citizens with great confidence in his fitness for his present important position as city health officer.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Source: Byington, Lewis Francis, "History of San Francisco 3 Vols", S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., Chicago, 1931. Vol. 3 Pages 250-253.
© 2008 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
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Newspaper article (exact source unknown):
BUTCHER IN WEST TO BE CHARGED IN HORSE MEAT SALE
By Associated Press
San Francisco, July 9. - A butcher shop supplying several hamburger stands along Ocean Beach has been mixing horse meat with ground beef, Dr. J. C. Geiger, city health director, said Friday.
Fifty pounds of horse meat were confiscated, Geiger reported.
Chief Inspector Bert Crowley said A. Sorensen, operator of the shop, acknowledged using horse meat.
Sale of horse meat for human consumption is a violation of California law.
Geiger said he would charge Sorensen with possession of uninspected meat.
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Copy of an advertisement in the Alex. Daily Town Talk (date unknown):
CRUSADER UNDAUNTED: Dr. J. C. Geiger, Private Physician to the Public
By Max Marshall
The story of a modern crusader - his armor, anything from white lab coat to white tie, his weapons ranging from the lance of medical science to the keen rapier of diplomacy - who fought the battle of better health.
Dr. J. C. Geiger has been cited as "one of Tulane's most distinguished alumni." Max Marshall's fast-paced book tells the story of this colorful man and his colorful career - from his boyhood in New Orleans [sic] through his executive posts in the public health departments of Chicago, Oakland and San Francisco. In it you'll meet Chinese villagers, notables of medicine and public health, business tycoons, gangsters, political bosses, and Philippine head-hunters. Max Marshall gives you a behind-the-scenes view of public health departments at work in his accounts of Dr. Geiger's campaigns against malaria, cholera, plague, and typhoid, and for the pasteurization of milk, purification of water supplies, and safe commercial preparation of food.
But this is only part of the story. Dr. Geiger celebrates his seventy-third birthday with the publication of Crusader Undaunted. Join him in reliving the distinguished career of one of America's most honored men.
Coming November 18 [1958] $3.50
The Macmillan Company
60 Fifth Avenue, New York 11, N.Y.
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Copy of review of taken from Med. Hist. 3 (July 3, 1959): 258.
Crusader Undaunted: Dr. J. C. Geiger, Private Physician to the Public. Max S. Marshall. New York and London: The Macmillan Company, New York, 1958; pp. 246. Frontispiece. 24s. 6d.
To write the biography of a man who is still living is a difficult task, especially for a friend, and some may doubt the wisdom of such an undertaking. Dr. Marshall, Professor of microbiology at the University of California School of Medicine, in a book with a rather journalese title pays a sincere tribute to a great figure in American public health and his fight against malaria, typhoid, typhus, botulism, plague, smallpox, tuberculosis, undulant fever, leprosy, venereal disease, and 'political sepsis'. As benefits a colourful subject, the author's style is colourful, and he tells many amusing stories, but his narrative suffers from being too rambling and containing too much that is trivial.
W. R. Bett
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Article taken from the Oakland Tribune of 16 November 1975:
90th Birthday Honors for Dr. J. C. Geiger
Dr. J. C. Geiger, world-renowned epidemiologist and retired health officer of Oakland and San Francisco, will be honored on his 90th birthday Tuesday at a reception by Chancellor and Mrs. Francis A. Sooy of the University of California in San Francisco.
Dr. Geiger began and ended his long public health career in the Eastbay. He was a professor of bacteriology at the University of California in Berkeley for several years, starting in 1911 and then, after serving as San Francisco's director of public health and institutions from 1931 to 1952, he was appointed Oakland health officer. He retired again in 1955 and served as consultant to the city in the consolidation of the Oakland Health Department with Alameda County until 1959.
He is an emeritus clinical professor of epidemiology in the Department of Microbiology of the U. C. Medical School.
Dr. Geiger holds 38 decorations from countries in the Americas and Europe where he assisted in solving public health problems.
A native of Alexandria, La., Dr. Geiger is a graduate of Tulane University. He and his wife, Anne, live at 2166 34th Ave., San Francisco.
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Obituary taken from the Alexandria Daily Town Talk of 07 November 1981:
Dr. Jacob Geiger
San Francisco - Dr. Jacob Casson Geiger, 95, of San Francisco died Saturday in his home.
He was a native of Alexandria, La. He was a world-renowned public health physician who received numerous awards and honors during his long medical career.
Survivors include two sons, Dr. James Geiger and John C. Geiger, both of California; one daughter, Anita Bordwell of California; 12 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
A memorial service will be at 2 p.m. Friday in the chapel of Grace Episcopal Cathedral. The body will be cremated and the ashes interred in Oak Grove Cemetery, Bath, Maine. Funeral arrangements are handled by Halsted-N. Gray and Co Mortuaries.
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Obituary taken from the San Francisco Chronicle of 10 November 1981:
Noted S. F. Health Chief J. C. Geiger Dies at 95
Dr. J. C. Geiger, the most dynamic and articulate health director San Francisco has known, died Saturday at Ralph K. Davies Medical Center. He was 95.
Dr. Geiger was admitted to the hospital Friday night from his home in the Sunset District.
Acknowledged as one of the world's greatest epidemiologists, Dr. Geiger was a public servant of the old school that holds that all public matters deserve the attention of public men.
When, many years ago, the city was threatened with a smallpox epidemic, Dr. Geiger issued a few sharp directives. Half a million people promptly lined up at stations estabished throughout the city and were vaccinated. Then hundreds wrote Dr. Geiger letters of thanks.
An uninhibited extrovert, Dr. Geiger gave himself to the people. A genius in the field of public relations, he maintained a quality of omnipresence and omniscience until the moment of his death.
Dr. Geiger, christened Jacob Cason [sic], was born in Alexandria, La., Nov. 18, 1885.
He attended both elementary and high schools in his native city and then entered Tulane University in New Orleans. He received his master's degree in 1905 and his medical degree in 1912. Thirty-two years later, upon receiving an honorary degree from Tulane, he was cited as the university's "most distinguished alumnus."
Upon being admitted to practice, Dr. Geiger came to California, where he served as assistant director and acting director of laboratories for the California Board of Health, as well as acting director of the Bureau of Communicable Diseases, from 1913 to 1916.
In 1919, he became a research fellow in medicine at the University of California's Hooper Foundation. In 1922 he was named associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Chicago, a post he held until 1927, when he became a professorial lecturer in epidemiology, a science that deals with the incidence, distribution and control of a disease in a population.
In 1928 he returned to California as associate professor of epidemiology at the Hooper Foundation; in 1930 he was appointed full professor. After that he served as clinical professor of epidemiology at the University of California Medical School; professor of public health and preventive medicine, College of Physicians and Surgeons; lecturer in preventive medicine at the University of Southern California; staff epidemiologist at Mt. Zion Hospital; clinical professor of Public Health at Stanford University Medical School; and consultant in public health to the Southern Pacific, Dollar Steamship Lines, American President Lines and Matson Navigation Co.
In 1930 Dr. Geiger was appointed San Francisco's health officer by a special medical commission. Two years later, when the new charter went into effect, he was appointed to the post of director of public health.
From 1916 to 1936 he held the ranks of surgeon and senior surgeon in the United States Public Health Service, devoting years to the study of such diseases as malaria and leprosy. He also held the rank of lieutenant colonel in the U. S. Army Medical Reserve.
In 1952, when Dr. Geiger resigned as director of public health after serving 21 years at the post, he took a similar post across the bay as Oakland's public health officer. In 1955, Dr. Geiger resigned that job at the age of 70, the mandatory retirement age. He was retained as a consultant to the department, however.
He is survived by three children, Anita Bordwell of Byron, Dr. James Geiger of San Jose, and John Geiger of Pasadena; twelve grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren. His wife, Anne, died in 1977.
A memorial service for Dr. Geiger is scheduled for 2 p.m. Friday at the Chapel of Grace at Grace Cathedral.
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Tulane University, New Orleans, Orleans, LA, awards the Jacob C. Geiger Gold Medal Award for the best doctoral thesis on a problem of public health.
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