Edward Taylor, Doctor of Medicine (MD), was a medical
researcher associated with the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research and George Washington University. In 1817 he worked in the research Laboratory of the Vermont State Board of Health in Burlington. That year he, in cooperation with H.L. Amoss of the same institution, published two papers on poliomyelitis and the virus causing it in the Journal of Experimental Medicine. That same year he was
invited by the South African Institute for Medical Research (SAIMR) to study
the poliomyelitis epidemic of 1917-1918 in South Africa. However, when he
arrived in Johannesburg early in 1918 the epidemic had subsided. He therefore
turned his attention to the influenza epidemic of 1918-1919 in South Africa,
conducting experiments in collaboration with F.S. Lister* in Durban. They
reported their findings in 'Observations and experimental investigations in
epidemic influenza' (Publications of the
SAIMR, No. 12, 1919, pp. 9-23).
