Fort Sam hospital renamed in honor of military physician

On this day in 1942, the station hospital at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio was designated Brooke General Hospital, in recognition of Gen. Roger Brooke. Brooke entered the U.S. Army Medical Corps in 1901 and became a specialist in infectious diseases, especially tuberculosis. He served as commanding officer of the hospital at Fort Sam from 1928 to 1933. He died in 1940. The hospital's roots go back to 1870, when the Post of San Antonio was established on the Texas frontier; at that time the medical facility was a small dispensary in a log cabin. The first permanent hospital was built in 1886, and the current structure in 1936-37. Brooke General Hospital was expanded in 1946 to become Brooke Army Medical Center and was at one time responsible for all of the medical training in the army. Today, activities at Brooke cover almost every aspect of health care, postgraduate medical education, medical training, and medical research.