After graduating from Harvard Medical School in 1910, Draper entered the Public Health Service, completing a two-year tour on the west coast followed by assignments near Washington D.C. During World War I he was commissioned by the U. S. Army as a sanitation officer, working at Camp Lee and Newport News, both in Virginia, and then conducting relief activities during influenza outbreaks in New England and Pennsylvania.

[1] Being successful in his trade, and having no children, the earlier Warren Draper made substantial gifts to his church and local schools and provided scholarships to aspiring students.

[5] Draper thought Amherst to be an exceptional school, but considered himself a mediocre student because of his other wide-ranging interests, such as attending fraternity parties, skating, and canoeing, usually with his future wife who was in the same year class at Smith College.

[2] A month after his marriage, Draper earned his MD degree, then went to Washington, D.C., to take the United States Public Health Service entrance exam.

[7][10] Draper finished second on the Public Health Service exam, out of about 25 examinees, and in August 1910 reported to his first assignment at the quarantine station on Angel Island in the San Francisco Bay.

Having seldom been far from their homes, Draper and his wife traveled the scenic route to the West Coast by taking the Canadian Pacific Railway over the Rocky Mountains to Vancouver, followed by a boat trip to Seattle, and then another train to San Francisco.

[10] Work at the quarantine station involved meeting and boarding ships arriving from Asia, and inspecting all of the passengers for plague, yellow fever, small pox, typhus, and leprocy.

[13]As events transpired, the laboratory director walked in, received a confession from the instigator, and following a short office visit let Draper know that he did not have the spirit for scientific research, and would not be going into that field.

[15] While Draper thought this a tragedy at the time, he later looked at it as a great turning point in his career, freeing him for work that would eventually bring him prominence in his profession.

[16] Cumming then put Draper in charge of a small laboratory in Colonial Beach, Virginia, where he spent the next year studying the bacteriological contamination of oysters in the Potomac River.

[16] Following his year at Colonial Beach, Draper returned to the headquarters of the Public Health Service in Washington, D.C., and became the assistant to the Chief of Scientific Research., Dr. John W. Kerr, in the Surgeon General's office.

[17] During this time, Draper participated in a study in Fulton County, Georgia, designed to both improve the living conditions of convicts while simultaneously reducing the per capita cost of maintaining them.

[17] His tenure at Camp Lee was short, and he was soon called to undertake similar work at the port in Newport News, Virginia, where troops embarked for the war in Europe.

[22] Without the availability of antibiotics at the time, medical personnel found that it was beneficial to get the flu victims out of crowded hospitals, where many of them would die, and into tents where they would get a lot more fresh air.

In such a body, medical and scientific personnel could be called to active duty into the health service in time of military necessity or in the event of the widespread outbreak of an epidemic disease.

"[27] In September 1926, Draper was assigned as assistant surgeon general in charge of domestic quarantine, continuing to maintain his close ties and collaboration with the various state health departments.

The governor, himself irritated by the criticism, had these words to say: Inasmuch as communicable disease is no respecter of State or party lines, I felt that I had a right to look the country over and appoint the very best man available.

[30] He had the worst time trying to get money for the control of venereal diseases because, as he said in a 1963 interview: the fine men who came from the rural areas and made up the General Assembly...didn't like to hear about things like syphilis and gonorrhea.

Deep in their conscientiousness was the conviction that any person who had overstepped the laws of morality and spiritual righteousness deserved what was coming to them, and to help miscreants out of the troubles visited upon them by God was just something you didn't do.

One of the big initiatives within this organization in the next two years, spearheaded by Dr. Parran, was to bring the plight of venereal diseases into the public domain where it could be discussed and handled openly.

A humorous outcome of this occurred when Draper was selected to speak to a woman's organization, and he called the secretary of the group ahead of time to find out if he could discuss venereal diseases.

While isolationists clamored against U.S. involvement, the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 put an end to such sentiments, and the subsequent declaration of war against the United States by Germany and Italy allowed for a clean entry by the Americans into the European Theater.

A highly qualified medical officer was needed to direct the Public Health Division of the Civil Affairs Branch (G-5) of the newly formed headquarters.

The European populace became overrun so fast by invading armies that the destruction and disruption of civilian life and institutions became great enough to impede the progress of the fighting forces.

He was made an "Honorary Companion of the Bath" by order of his majesty, King George VI of the United Kingdom, with the award presented at a ceremony in London by Air Marshall Sir Arthur Tedder.

Drawing on his many years' experience, he coordinated all resources for the prevention and control of civilian epidemics which might have interfered with military operations, and successfully met tremendous problems caused by the chaotic conditions left by the war in many areas.

[40] Draper wrote in 1953, "As there were no indications that the deplorable conditions of the past would not extend indefinitely into the future, the fund had no other recourse than to arrange for the establishment of new hospitals in some of the areas in which [the] most desperate need existed.

And in this work, more and more as the days go by, the eminent figures in the American medical world are coming to understand more and more the value of this great arrangement in our industry and more and more are extending their cooperation and their helpfulness to make it the most successful of any plan in the country.

Dr. Draper wrote in a 1953 article, "the arduous, costly task of restoring men with crushed limbs and backs in the terrible toll of the coal mines is one of the finest chapters in the history of medicine.

He worked for the U.S. Public Health Service until his death in Washington, D.C., in May 1943 from a brain tumor, and is buried in Columbia Gardens Cemetery, Arlington County, Virginia.