Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/1223

NAME WATEKHOUSE 12U1 WATERHOUSE he lived with John Quincy Adams, The elder Adams later joined the young men in their quarters at Leyden while waiting for the negotiations that were taking place with England. After obtaining his degree, Waterhouse again worked with his uncle in London. At his house a number of the more serious- minded people : philosophers, authors, dis- tinguished foreigners, members of the House of Lords and Commons, were accustomed to gather at breakfast, to discuss things scientific. In this way Benjamin Waterhouse formed many distinguished acquaintances, with whom he kept up a correspondence for the remainder of his life. Dr. Fothergill was a bachelor, and the question naturally came up, whether or no Waterhouse should remain in London as Fothergill's assistant and successor; but he determined that it was for the best interests of all concerned that he should return to America, bringing to his own cotintry the erudition that he had acquired during his years of studj' in England and on the conti- nent. Finally, in June, 1782, after an absence of more than seven years, Waterhouse, 28 years of age, returned to his native town and began to practise. He was probably the best educated physician in America. Plans were being made in Boston and Cam- bridge for the formation of a medical school in connection with Harvard College, and Waterhouse was invited to take the chair of. theory and practice of medicine. The inaug- uration of the three new professorships fol- lowed in 1783. Almost immediately Dr. Water- house and Dr. John Warren (q.v.) realized the need of clinical material for suppleinenting the lectures on medicine and surgery, and in 1784 applied to the town of Boston for the use of the infirmary at the almshouse. This applica- tion was opposed by members of the Boston Medical Society from motives of jealousy and thus the progress of medical education was blocked for more than twenty years. In the year 1786-87, he delivered a course of lectures on natural history at the Rhode Island College at Providence, and these were later repeated at Cambridge. They were in reality the first systematic instruction in the branches of mineralogy and botany that were given in America. Dr. Lettsom, of London, sent a valuable collection of minerals which was the nucleus of the present museum of mineralogy at Harvard. Waterhouse was also instrumental in forming a botanical garden at Cambridge in order to have specimens with which to illustrate his lectures. The most important medical event which happened in America prior to the discovery of anesthesia was the introduction of vacci- nation, and its introduction and, later, its acceptance on a scientific basis were due to the eiTorts of Dr. Waterhouse. In the year 1799, he received from his friend, Dr. Lettsom, a copy of Edward Jenner's "Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae or Cowpox," published in 1798. It was prob- ably the first copy to reach America. Water- house was much impressed by the work, and immediately published in the Columbian Senti- nel of Boston, March 12, 1799, a short account of the new inoculation method under the title, "Something Curious in the Medical Line." "This publication," he says, "shared the fate of most others on new discoveries. A few re- ceived it as a very important discover}-, highly interesting to humanity; some doubted it; others observed that wise and prudent conduct which allows them to condemn or applaud, as the event might prove ; while a greater number absolutely ridiculed it as one of those medical whims which arise today and tomorrow are no more." Later in the same year Dr. Waterhouse re- ceied from London Dr. Georcre Pearson's book entitled, "An Inquiry Concerning the History of the Cowpox Principalh- with a View to Supersede and Extinguish the Small- pox." Later in the year, at a meeting of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences held at Cambridge and presided over by President John Adams, and before an audience of many eminent literary men, Waterhouse read a paper on the new vaccination method that he had gleaned from Jenner's and Pearson's books. This communication was received with much interest by the members of the Academy. Waterhouse apparently tried to secure vac- cine from England immediately on the receipt of the book, but it was not until June, 1800, that, after many futile attempts, he succeeded in getting vaccine virus from Dr. Haygarth of Bath, England. With this, on July 8, he vac- cinated his oldest son, Daniel O. Waterhouse, five years of age ; later, another child of three, and several other members of the family. He watclied the phenomena associated with the vaccination and found that they corresponded in every way with the accounts given by Jen- ner in his book. In order to make certain in his own mind that vaccination really protected from smallpox, he made application to Dr. Aspinwall (q.v.), who had a private smallpox hospital in Brookline, Massachusetts, and re- quested that he inoculate the persons that Dr. Waterhouse had vaccinated with the variolous