Robert E. Noble (November 5, 1870 – September 18, 1956) was an American physician and a career officer in the United States Army.

Noble entered the army as a contract surgeon and served from 1900 to 1901, when he obtained his commission as a first lieutenant in the Medical Corps.

In 1914, Noble served with U.S. forces during the occupation of Veracruz, after which he performed staff duty in the office of the Surgeon General of the United States Army.

During World War I, he was promoted to temporary brigadier general and temporary major general, and was assigned to senior Medical Corps positions, including Chief Surgeon of Base Section Number 2 in Bordeaux and Base Section Number 5 in Brest.

In 1920, Noble served on the Rockefeller Foundation commission that traveled to South Africa to investigate the causes of diseases including pneumonia.

[2] His mother was Lucy Bomer Wadsworth and his father George Noble was an iron manufacturer and Confederate States Army veteran of the American Civil War who served under Josiah Gorgas.

[5] Beginning in 1890, he worked as Alabama's assistant state chemist, then held a similar position in North Carolina.

[6] In September 1900, Noble was hired by the United States Army as a contract surgeon and assigned to duty in the Philippines.

[5] In this role he aided William C. Gorgas in planning and carrying out an anti-mosquito campaign to reduce the deaths and illness caused by malaria and yellow fever during construction of the Panama Canal.

[8] Noble remained in Germany after the war as part of the Occupation of the Rhineland, and he returned to the United States in August 1919.

He also had charge of the Hospital Division of the Surgeon General's Office, handling both of these large responsibilities with conspicuous success.

[19]In 1920, Noble was appointed to the Rockefeller Foundation commission that visited South Africa, where they investigated the causes and treatments of pneumonia and other diseases.