WALTER REED ARMY MEDICAL CENTER

a large hospital and medical centre in Washington, DC, that provides medical care for members of the US armed forces and their families. The US President often goes there for medical checks. The Center, which also does research, opened as a hospital in 1909 and is named after Major Walter Reed (1851–1902), a US Army doctor who discovered that mosquitoes (= small insects that suck blood) cause the tropical disease yellow fever.