- John Maynard Woodworth
Infobox US Cabinet official
name = John Maynard Woodworth
order = 1st
title =Surgeon General of the United States
term_start =March 29 ,1871
term_end =March 14 ,1879
predecessor= None
successor =John B. Hamilton
birth_date =August 15 ,1837
birth_place= flagicon|New YorkBig Flats, New York , USA
death_date = death date and age|1879|3|14|1837|8|15 |
death_place=
party = Republican"For the New York State Attorney General see
John Woodworth (lawyer) "John Maynard Woodworth (1837–1879) was a U.S. physician. He served as the first Supervising-Surgeon General, then changed to Surgeon General of the United States Marine Hospital Service from 1871 to 1879.
Woodworth was born on
August 15 ,1837 , inBig Flats ,Chemung County ,New York . His family soon moved toIllinois , where Woodworth attended school inWarrenville . He studiedpharmacy at theUniversity of Chicago and worked as apharmacist for a time.Woodworth was one of the organizers of the
Chicago Academy of Science and in 1858 became curator of its museum. In this capacity, he made several trips west of theMississippi River to collect natural history specimens. He was appointed naturalist by theUniversity of Chicago in 1859 and asked to establish a museum ofnatural history . Woodworth also spent time working at theSmithsonian Institution over the next few years. He then decided to embark on medical studies, and graduated from theChicago Medical College in 1862.Almost immediately upon graduating from medical school, Woodworth was appointed Assistant Surgeon in the
Union Army . He was soon promoted to Surgeon and eventually became Medical Director of theArmy of the Tennessee . Woodworth served under GeneralWilliam Tecumseh Sherman , and on "Sherman's March to the Sea " he was in charge of the ambulance train, bringing the sick and wounded to Savannah without the loss of a single man.Following the Civil War, Woodworth spent a year in
Europe , receiving clinical instruction chiefly in the hospitals ofBerlin andVienna . In 1866, he became demonstrator in anatomy at theChicago Medical College . He was also appointed Surgeon of the Soldier's home ofChicago and Sanitary Inspector of theChicago Board of Health in that same year.In 1871, Woodworth was appointed the first Supervising Surgeon of the
Marine Hospital Service . The Service had its origins in a 1798Act of Congress "for the relief of sick and disabled seamen." The 1798 law created a fund to be used by theFederal Government of the United States to provide medical services to merchant seamen in American ports, which was expanded to include military and others who made their living associated with seagoing. The marine hospital fund was administered by theTreasury Department and financed through a monthly deduction from the wages of the seamen. Medical care was provided through contracts with existing hospitals and, increasingly as time went on, through the construction of new hospitals for this purpose. The earliest marine hospitals were located along theEast Coast of the United States , withBoston being the site of the first such facility, but later they were also established along inland waterways, theGreat Lakes , and the Gulf Coast andPacific Coast .The marine hospitals hardly constituted a system in the
Antebellum period. Funds for the hospitals were inadequate, political rather than medical reasons often influenced the choice of sites for hospitals and the selection of physicians, and the Treasury Department had little supervisory authority over the hospitals. During the Civil War, the Union and Confederate forces occupied the hospitals for their own use, and in 1864 only 8 of the 27 hospitals listed before the war were operational. In 1869, theUnited States Secretary of the Treasury commissioned an extensive study of the marine hospitals, and the resulting critical report led to the passage of reform legislation in the following year.The 1870 reorganization converted the loose network of locally controlled hospitals into a centrally controlled
Marine Hospital Service , with its headquarters inWashington, DC . The position of Supervising Surgeon (later Surgeon General) was created to administer the Service. Woodworth began his service in the position onMarch 29 ,1871 , and he moved quickly to reform the system. He adopted a military model for his medical staff, instituting examinations for applicants instead of appointing physicians on the recommendation of the localCollector of Customs . Physicians, whom Woodworth placed in uniforms, were no longer appointed to serve in a particular facility, but appointed to the general Service. In this way, Woodworth created a cadre of mobile, career service physicians who could be assigned and moved as needed to the various marine hospitals. The uniformed services component of the Marine Hospital Service was formalized as the Commissioned Corps by legislation enacted in 1889 under Woodworth's successor,John B. Hamilton .In 1872, Woodworth initiated the publication of annual reports of the Marine Hospital Service. That same year he also served as one of the founders of the
American Public Health Association .From the time of his appointment, Woodworth envisioned broader responsibilities for the Marine Hospital Service, well beyond the care of merchant seamen. In 1873, his title was changed to Supervising Surgeon General. He issued publications on
cholera andyellow fever , and laid the foundations for the passage of theNational Quarantine Act of 1878 . This Act conferredquarantine authority on the Marine Hospital Service, initiating a process whereby over the next half a century the Service progressively took over quarantine functions from the states. The Act also authorized the publication of "Weekly Abstracts of Consular Sanitary Reports " (the forerunner of the Service's journalPublic Health Reports ). The Marine Hospital Service thus moved into public health activities under Woodworth, paving the way for its later evolution into thePublic Health Service .Woodworth also designed the seal of the Service, which he first used on a publication that he authored in 1874 on
Nomenclature of Diseases . The seal consisted of a fouled anchor, to represent the seamen cared for by the Service, and thecaduceus of Mercury. The latter symbol was particularly appropriate since it served as a symbol of commerce (which could represent the merchant marine) but was also used by theArmy Medical Corps as its symbol. With minor changes in design, this device has remained the seal of the Public Health Service to the present day.John Maynard Woodworth remained in the position of Supervising Surgeon General until his death in Washington, DC, on
March 14 ,1879 ."This article was originally based on
public domain [http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/history/biowoodworth.htm text] written by the U.S. government."
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