He studied at University of Pennsylvania, where he obtained his Bachelor of Science and Doctor of Medicine degrees in 1884.
During WW I he was on academic leave of absence from 1917 to 1919, when he served in the United States Army Medical Reserve Corps as chief of the laboratory staff at Fort Oglethorpe.
[2][3] He was chairman of the Editorial Board for the first edition of Bergey's Manual of Determinative Bacteriology, published in 1923.
[4] The Trust is currently based at the University of Georgia in Athens, GA, USA.
[5] Bergey was elected in 1903 a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.