He made his first collecting expedition to Puerto Rico in 1919, then became the assistant curator of reptiles and amphibians at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago in 1922.

On September 26, 1957, Schmidt was accidentally bitten by a juvenile boomslang snake (Dispholidus typus) at his lab at the Field Museum.

Marlin Perkins, the director of the Lincoln Park Zoo, had sent the snake to Schmidt's lab for identification.

[5][6] Schmidt wrongly believed that the snake could not produce a fatal dose because of its age and the fact that boomslangs are rear-fanged.

[8] Schmidt was asked just a few hours before he died if he wanted medical care, but he refused because it would disrupt the symptoms that he was documenting.

[citation needed] He collapsed at his home in Homewood, Illinois, bleeding in his lungs, kidneys, heart, and brain, and was dead on arrival at Ingalls Memorial Hospital.