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George Washington


Benjamin Waterhouse

Author/Artist: artist unknown

Type: Illustration

Topic: Portrait

Portrait of Benjamin Waterhouse, MD

Physician Benjamin Waterhouse was the first in the United States to test the new smallpox vaccine, which used cow-pox material, in 1800.


Related Information

  • Title page of A prospect of exterminating the small-pox...

    A prospect of exterminating the small-pox, being the history of the Variolae vaccinae, or kine-pox, commonly called the cow-pox: as it has appeared in England : with an account of a series of inoculations performed for the kine-pox, in Massachusetts.

    Benjamin Waterhouse self-published this pamphlet that reports on his inquiry into smallpox beginning with his receipt in 1799 of Edward Jenner's "inquiry into the causes and effects of the Variole Vaccine, or Cow-Pox," through to a summary of Waterhouse's use of the vaccine, using cowpox, a milder form of the disease, on his own children.

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