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WATERHOUSE, BENJAMIN (1754-1846). A Prospect of Exterminating the Small Pox, PART II, Being a Continuation of a Narrative of Facts Concerning the Progress of the New Inoculation in America, together with Practical Observations on the Local Appearance, Symptoms, and Mode of Treating the Variola Vaccina or Kine Pock. Cambridge [Mass.]: Printed for the Author at the University Press by William Hilliard, 1802 (probably 1803). FIRST EDITION of this part, 8vo, 139 pp., full calf, joints worn, some scuffing, small chip out of lower front board, darkening of edges on end pages, minor foxing, a nice copy. References: Garrison & Morton 5424, Shaw & Shoemaker 3499.
Benjamin Waterhouse was a native of Newport, Rhode Island and was the first successful practitioner of vaccination for smallpox in the United States. He was among the first American colonists to receive an extensive European medical education, studying with John Fothergill in London, taking courses with William Cullen in Edinburgh, and receiving his M.D. from the Dutch University at Leiden in 1780. Waterhouse returned to the United States of America in 1782 as a new member of a small medical elite, and he became the first professor of the Theory and Practice of Physic at Harvard.
In 1798, Edward Jenner published his celebrated work, An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae, on the use of cowpox matter to inoculate for smallpox. Waterhouse began to study vaccination, reading the available published materials and exchanging letters with colleagues in England, including Jenner. On July 4, 1800, Waterhouse obtained a sample of cowpox matter?a thread soaked with cowpox lymph and placed in a sealed glass vial. Four days later, Waterhouse vaccinated his children and his servants. Subsequently, the children were experimentally inoculated with smallpox and found to be immune.
Waterhouse hoped to make vaccination universal in the United States, and one of his most prominent allies was Thomas Jefferson. The two exchanged many letters, and Jefferson personally vaccinated members of his own household. Vaccination was frequently questioned by the public, and Waterhouse was unable to accomplish his overall goal of universal vaccination in the United States. After leaving Harvard, Waterhouse became hospital surgeon to the U.S. military. He continued to vaccinate and developed a friendship with popular medical reformer Samuel Thomson. Benjamin Waterhouse died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the age of 92. (Source: Harvard Curiosity Collections)
A review this work reads in part, ?It is well known to the public that the author was the first person in America who successfully imported and inoculated the vaccine disease. His exertions to introduce, disseminate and vindicate this inestimable substitute for the small-pox, give him a just and elevated distinction among those who have signalized their zeal in the cause of humanity. He seems to have perceived, at his first glance of discovery, all the important consequences which were likely to result from it, and to have devoted his time and attention to the object with a degree of diligence which eminently deserves the thanks of the community. We believe no improvement in the practice of physic, of any great importance, was ever adopted by the community with so much readiness as the vaccine inoculation. Yet this too has had no small share of opposition and prejudice to encounter.? (Note: As true today as over 200 years ago)
Medical Repository and Review of American Publications on Medicine? New York, 1803, Vol. 6, p. 410.
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