Charles-Edward Amory Winslow (1877–1957) was a seminal figure in public health, not only in his own country, the United States, but in the wider Western world. His vision and intellectual leadership enabled him, more than anyone else, to influence the development of public health services in the United States as well as in many European nations. His inspired leadership did much to ensure that the rapidly developing industrial cities and the rural regions of the United States were adequately provided with the essential public health services of sanitation, regulation of food-and waterborne hazards to health, development of health-education programs, and education of public health specialists. In a period dominated by discoveries in bacteriology, he recognized the importance of a broader perspective on causation than that embraced by the germ theory of disease.