Benjamin Waterhouse

author

Benjamin Waterhouse

1754–1846

A pioneering American physician, he helped found Harvard Medical School and became known for bringing smallpox vaccination into early American medicine. His career mixed serious scientific ambition with a willingness to test new ideas close to home.

1 Audiobook

A journal, of a young man of Massachusetts, late a surgeon on board an American privateer, who was captured at sea by the British in May, eighteen hundred and thirteen and was confined first, at Melville Island, Halifax, then at Chatham, in England, and last at Dartmoor prison : Interspersed with observations, anecdotes and remarks, tending to illustrate the moral and political characters of three nations. To which is added, a correct engraving of Dartmoor prison, representing the massacre of American prisoners.

A journal, of a young man of Massachusetts, late a surgeon on board an American privateer, who was captured at sea by the British in May, eighteen hundred and thirteen and was confined first, at Melville Island, Halifax, then at Chatham, in England, and last at Dartmoor prison : Interspersed with observations, anecdotes and remarks, tending to illustrate the moral and political characters of three nations. To which is added, a correct engraving of Dartmoor prison, representing the massacre of American prisoners.

by Benjamin Waterhouse

About the author

Born in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1754, Benjamin Waterhouse trained in Europe before returning to the United States with a broad medical education that stood out in his time. In 1783, he joined John Warren and Aaron Dexter in forming the first faculty of Harvard Medical School, where he served as a professor of medicine.

Waterhouse is best remembered for introducing smallpox vaccination to the United States around 1800. Inspired by Edward Jenner's work, he tested the vaccine on members of his own household and then worked to promote vaccination more widely, helping to spread a practice that would become one of the great advances in public health.

He was not always an easy or universally admired figure, but his influence was lasting. Waterhouse's life connects the young republic, early medical education, and the beginnings of preventive medicine in America.