Leonard D. White | |
---|---|
Born | Douglas, Massachusetts, United States | September 7, 1856
Died | September 18, 1906 50) | (aged
Education | Golf and Mowry School, tutored by JM Macomber MD of Uxbridge Academy; Harvard Medical School; |
Occupation(s) | Physician, Health Officer, Chair of Uxbridge Board of Health, |
Known for | involved with first efforts for malaria preention; published early cases of fatal illness following vaccine |
Parent(s) | David P. White, and Clarissa (Darling) White of Douglas |
Leonard D. White, M.D. (1856-1906) was a late 19th-century physician and one of the Health Officers in Massachusetts who was involved with the earliest study of mosquitoes and malaria and efforts for community prevention of malaria. He served as chairman of the Board of Health in Uxbridge.
He was born September 7, 1856, in Douglas, Massachusetts. He was the son of Dr. David P. and Clarissa Darlin).
He attended the Mowry and Goff School and was tutored by Joshua Mason Macomber of the Uxbridge Academy. He completed his education at Harvard Medical School. He practiced as a generalist, a country doctor, in Uxbridge Massachusetts.
He married Lillian Belle Brown on July 20, 1882. They had one child, Charles W. born on March 18, 1886.
He died on September 18, 1906, of heart disease.
Dr. Leonard White published two reports of early childhood vaccine related deaths, (1885). [1] The description of the deaths of these two children, vaccinated two weeks earlier by an unknown practitioner is nothing less than tragic. The time period was consistent with smallpox vaccination. Tetanus toxoid would come into use, just a short time later in 1887. In 1896, Theobald Smith, state Board of Health pathologist, wrote the now local health officer at Uxbridge, Dr. White, who had published a written report to the state board of health on a local malaria outbreak [2] Smith warned White of mosquito connections to malaria, later proven in 1897, by Ronald Ross, in India. He recommended that Dr. White ask his boy to attempt to trap some of the mosquitoes in Uxbridge, in boxes with pinholes, for further study, and take precautions with screens on the windows of buildings, drainage of collections of water, etc. Indeed, there were some swampy lands near Uxbridge along the Blackstone River, the Mumford River and West River. This was believed to be the first attempt at "prevention" for malaria. In 1905, the state board of health, ordered the town to move its water supply, due to contamination from the polluted river. [3]
Here is the letter that Dr. Theobald Smith wrote to Dr. White as "health officer" at Uxbridge. In 1889 and 1893, Dr. Theobald Smith made discoveries which implicated cattle ticks as the necessary developmental host of the causal agent of Texas cattle fever. The question of what caused malaria and how it was transmitted did not escape his attention. In 1896, he wrote this letter to one Dr. White of Uxbridge, Massachusetts which was in the midst of a malaria outbreak.
June 30, 1896 Dear Doctor:
Your published letter has been received and read with much interest. I think that you state the situation as clearly as it can be made out at the present time. I wish to state in a few words what I am at present considering as a working hypothesis but I do not care to have it published or discussed at present as I have no evidence to back it up. I simply make the suggestions for your own use as Health Officer.
I believe that the malarial germ is caused by mosquitoes, not all mosquitoes to be sure but only those in infected localities. Anything that favors the breeding of these pests like stagnant ponds, pools, sewers, etc. would favor it.
I wish that your boy would catch for me some of the Uxbridge mosquitoes and send them to me alive in a box with pinholes in them. I wish to compare them with those in this non-infected neighborhood.
In your work of suppression, I would suggest that you keep your mind on these insects. Devise protection by window screens, in-door (illegible) abandonment of barrels, tubs, etc. about the house that contain water in which they breed abundantly.
However this hypothesis will be found true I do not at present know. The State Board is not prepared to make any public statement so I wish you to keep the letter as a confidential matter.
I regret that my work here does not permit me to spend (more or some) time at Uxbridge.
But if you keep me informed I can make suggestions from here. I also wish that you would continue to send me (preparations) when opportunity offers.
Very truly yours,
Theobald Smith
Dr. Leonard White's house was in Uxbridge, on Douglas Street, next to where Snowling Rd is located today. [4] White was an example of a 19th-century physician, a country doctor, who published, and who served as a local health officer, under the Massachusetts State Board of Health. His contributions were significant in the history of medicine and public health. He was a contemporary of Walter Reed, who contributed in 1885 to the same publication in which Dr. White's case reports of childhood vaccine related deaths appeared. Walter Reed unlocked answers to Yellow fever in the late 19th century. The first notion of a connection of mosquitoes transmitting diseases was from a Cuban physician, Carlos Finlay in 1881 relating to Finlay's work with Yellow fever, later confirmed specifically for malaria by Ronald Ross in India c. 1898. Malaria is a protozoan disease carried by aedes aegypti mosquitoes, as a "vector".
Another Harvard Medical School graduate, and contemporary of Dr. White would become renowned for public health work in Providence during the same period, Charles V. Chapin. Chapin was Superintendent of public health in Providence, just 20 miles away. His contributions extended to infection control practices that remain in use to this day. They were both born in 1856, and likely crossed paths at Harvard medical school and beyond.
Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran was a French physician who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1907 for his discoveries of parasitic protozoans as causative agents of infectious diseases such as malaria and trypanosomiasis. Following his father, Louis Théodore Laveran, he took up military medicine as his profession. He obtained his medical degree from University of Strasbourg in 1867.
Theobald Smith FRS(For) HFRSE was a pioneering epidemiologist, bacteriologist, pathologist and professor. Smith is widely considered to be America's first internationally-significant medical research scientist.
Walter Reed was a U.S. Army physician who in 1901 led the team that confirmed the theory of Cuban doctor Carlos Finlay that yellow fever is transmitted by a particular mosquito species rather than by direct contact. This insight gave impetus to the new fields of epidemiology and biomedicine, and most immediately allowed the resumption and completion of work on the Panama Canal (1904–1914) by the United States. Reed followed work started by Finlay and directed by George Miller Sternberg, who has been called the "first U.S. bacteriologist".
One of the greatest challenges facing the builders of the Panama Canal was dealing with the tropical diseases rife in the area. The health measures taken during the construction contributed greatly to the success of the canal's construction. These included general health care, the provision of an extensive health infrastructure, and a major program to eradicate disease-carrying mosquitoes from the area.
Carlos Juan Finlay was a Cuban epidemiologist recognized as a pioneer in the research of yellow fever, determining that it was transmitted through mosquitoes Aedes aegypti.
William Crawford Gorgas KCMG was a United States Army physician and 22nd Surgeon General of the U.S. Army (1914–1918). He is best known for his work in Florida, Havana and at the Panama Canal in abating the transmission of yellow fever and malaria by controlling the mosquitoes that carry these diseases. At the time, his strategy was greeted with considerable skepticism and opposition to such hygiene measures. However, the measures he put into practice as the head of the Panama Canal Zone Sanitation Commission saved thousands of lives and contributed to the success of the Canal's construction.
Jesse William Lazear was an American physician.
Frederick Vincent Theobald FES was an English entomologist and "distinguished authority on mosquitoes". During his career, he was responsible for the economic zoology section of the Natural History Museum, London, vice-principal of the South-Eastern Agricultural College at Wye, Kent, Professor of Agricultural Zoology at London University, and advisory entomologist to the Board of Agriculture for the South-Eastern district of England. He wrote a five volume monograph and sixty scientific papers on mosquitoes. He was recognised for his work in entomology, tropical medicine, and sanitation; awards for his work include the Imperial Ottoman Order of Osmanieh, the Mary Kingsley Medal, and the Victoria Medal of Honour, as well as honorary fellowships of learned societies.
During the 1793 Yellow Fever epidemic in Philadelphia, 5,000 or more people were listed in the official register of deaths between August 1 and November 9. The vast majority of them died of Yellow Fever, making the epidemic in the city of 50,000 people one of the most severe in United States history. By the end of September, 20,000 people had fled the city, including congressional and executive officials of the federal government. Most did not return until after the epidemic had abated in late November. The mortality rate peaked in October before frost finally killed the mosquitoes and brought an end to the outbreak. Doctors tried a variety of treatments but knew neither the origin of the fever nor that the disease was transmitted by mosquitoes.
The history of malaria extends from its prehistoric origin as a zoonotic disease in the primates of Africa through to the 21st century. A widespread and potentially lethal human infectious disease, at its peak malaria infested every continent except Antarctica. Its prevention and treatment have been targeted in science and medicine for hundreds of years. Since the discovery of the Plasmodium parasites which cause it, research attention has focused on their biology as well as that of the mosquitoes which transmit the parasites.
Disease in colonial America that afflicted the early immigrant settlers was a dangerous threat to life. Some of the diseases were new and treatments were ineffective. Malaria was deadly to many new arrivals, especially in the Southern colonies. Of newly arrived able-bodied young men, over one-fourth of the Anglican missionaries died within five years of their arrival in the Carolinas. Mortality was high for infants and small children, especially for diphtheria, smallpox, yellow fever, and malaria. Most sick people turned to local healers, and used folk remedies. Others relied upon the minister-physicians, barber-surgeons, apothecaries, midwives, and ministers; a few used colonial physicians trained either in Britain, or an apprenticeship in the colonies. One common treatment was blood letting. The method was crude due to a lack of knowledge about infection and disease among medical practitioners. There was little government control, regulation of medical care, or attention to public health. By the 18th century, Colonial physicians, following the models in England and Scotland, introduced modern medicine to the cities in the 18th century, and made some advances in vaccination, pathology, anatomy and pharmacology.
Juan Guitéras y Gener, was a Cuban physician and pathologist specializing in yellow fever.
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1. Wrona, B. Mae., Uxbridge, Images of America; 2000; Arcadia Publishing Company; ISBN 0-7385-0461-0