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Admission Ticket to a lecture at Harvard Medical School
The use of admission tickets for each course of a medical student’s education was common until the late 19th century. Students paid the lecturer or professor directly and were then issued these passes for an academic session. This particular…
Will of Ezekiel Hersey
In his will, Hingham physician Ezekiel Hersey bequeathed £1,000 to the Harvard Corporation to fund a professorship in anatomy and physic [physiology]. Although it took some years for the Corporation to establish a program of medical study, in…
A Collection of Papers Relative to the Transactions of the Town of Milton
The Selectmen of Milton, Massachusetts, assembled, published, and distributed this assortment of documents to prove the efficacy of vaccination against smallpox and encourage towns throughout the state to establish vaccination programs. Through the…
Benjamin Waterhouse
This portrait of Waterhouse at the age of 79, attributed to American artist Rembrandt Peale, was on display at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876.
Waterhouse Family Bible
The flyleaves and end papers of Bibles were often used to record the births, deaths, and marriages of family members. But this Bible, belonging to the Waterhouse family, was used to record Benjamin Waterhouse's cowpox inoculations of his children,…
Vaccine Inoculation
This unusual illustration of a child's arm with the distinctive mark of inoculation was inserted in Benjamin Waterhouse's own copy of The Origin of the Vaccine Inoculation (London : printed by D. N. Shury, 1801). The Origin was Edward Jenner's…
Snuffbox
This silver snuffbox was a gift from Edward Jenner to Benjamin Waterhouse and contained quills impregnated with cowpox vaccine matter for use in America. In a letter dated November 16, 1802, Waterhouse said,"Dr. Jenner has been to me what the sun is…
A Prospect of Exterminating the Small-Pox
Benjamin Waterhouse's first pamphlet on the subject of his inoculation work appeared in September, 1800, just a few weeks after the vaccination of the Waterhouse children and servants in the summer. The pamphlet describes his early promotion of…
On the Difficulty of Preserving the Vaccine Virus on Thread or Glass
in Very Hot Weather
Some of the problems associated with the early smallpox vaccination work are highlighted in this manuscript of Benjamin Waterhouse. Without an adequate way to preserve the active virus at high temperatures, Waterhouse often found its efficacy…
Letter from Benjamin Waterhouse to Edward Jenner
In this letter, Waterhouse describes for Jenner the difficulties he has encountered with inoculations of spurious matter and asks for some additional vaccine, specifying that the matter be sent on soaked threads pressed between glass and sealed with…
Letter from Benjamin Waterhouse to Lyman Spalding
Benjamin Waterhouse's position as a supplier of vaccine matter to American physicians is attested in this letter to a colleague, Lyman Spalding (1775-1821). Note that the letter also refers to Jenner's gift to Waterhouse of the silver snuffbox…
Letter from Benjamin Waterhouse to Edward Everett
In the 1820s, years after his initial vaccination experiments, Benjamin Waterhouse remained closely involved with the subject. He used this letterbook to keep copies of correspondence with President John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, and other…
A Prospect of Exterminating the Small Pox, Part II
In this companion pamphlet to his original publication just two years earlier, Waterhouse recounts the popularity of smallpox inoculation following his experiments, as well as the consequent appearance of spurious cowpox matter which caused a…
Letter from Benjamin Waterhouse to John Mellen and the Selectmen of the Town of Cambridge
This letter from Waterhouse proposes that Cambridge initiate a general vaccination program for all its citizens—“adopting that easy substitute afforded them by Divine Goodness”—and vaccinate the poor without charge.
Letter from Benjamin Waterhouse to Wooster Beach
One of the most notable supporters of Samuel Thomson was Benjamin Waterhouse, formerly Harvard's Hersey Professor of the Theory and Practice of Physic. Here, in a letter to Wooster Beach (1794-1868), founder of the eclectic medical movement,…
