Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Reed, Walter, 1851–1902, American army surgeon, b. Gloucester co., Va. In 1900 he was sent to Havana as head of an army commission to investigate an outbreak of yellow fever among American soldiers....

(Encyclopedia) Walter Reed Army Medical Center, former major military hospital complex in Washington, D.C., and Forest Glen, Md. The original facility, Walter Reed General Hospital, named for U.S. army surgeon Walte...

(Encyclopedia) reed, name used for several plants of the family Graminae (grass family). The common American reed, also called reedgrass and canegrass, is a tall perennial grass (Phragmites australis), widely distri...

(Encyclopedia) Reed College, at Portland, Oreg.; coeducational; inc. 1908, opened 1911 through a bequest from Mr. and Mrs. Simeon G. Reed. Reed is noted for its program of natural sciences and for its system of tuto...

(Encyclopedia) reed instrument, in music, an instrument whose sound-producing agent is a thin strip of cane, wood, plastic, or metal that vibrates as air is passed over it. The predecessor of these instruments is th...

(Encyclopedia) Reed, Thomas Brackett, 1839–1902, American legislator, b. Portland, Maine. A lawyer, he served in the state assembly (1868–69) and state senate (1870) and became (1870–73) state attorney general...

(Encyclopedia) Reed, John, 1887–1920, American journalist and radical leader, b. Portland, Oreg. After graduating from Harvard in 1910, he wrote articles for various publications and from 1913 was attached to the ...

(Encyclopedia) reed organ, an organ in which air is forced over free reeds by means of bellows, usually worked by pedals. It is played by the use of one or more keyboards. Variations in tone are produced by stops th...

(Encyclopedia) reed bird: see bobolink.

(Encyclopedia) reed mace: see cattail.