John B. Hamilton
Encyclopedia
John B. Hamilton was an American physician and soldier. He was appointed the second Surgeon General of the United States
from 1879 to 1891.
, near the present town of Otterville
. He was educated at the Hamilton School, operated by his family, and apprenticed at age 16 to physician
Joseph O. Hamilton. The following year (1864), Hamilton enlisted in G Company, 61st Illinois Regiment. After the close of the Civil War
, he attended Rush Medical College
in Chicago
(1869, MD
) and entered private practice.
in the United States Army
(1874) and after he resigned from the Army, into the Regular Corps of the Marine Hospital Service
(MHS). In 1876, the 24 year old Hamilton sat for the first examination for entrance into MHS, passed with flying colors, and was commissioned as an Assistant Surgeon on Oct 21, 1876. His talent in public health practice revealed itself early, during an 1877 assignment to the Boston Marine Hospital at Chelsea, Massachusetts
. Changing land use in the area had blocked hospital sewage
from draining properly, causing unexpected outbreaks of infectious disease
among patients. Hamilton resolved the crisis successfully by directing a renovation of the facility's drainage and sewage systems.
, succeeding fellow Army veteran and Chicagoan Dr. John Woodworth
, the first Supervising Surgeon. Woodworth had died in office, amidst a political battle with the fledgling American Public Health Association
and its allies in the United States Congress
over the possibility that a new National Board of Health would supersede the newly revamped MHS (1871).
That MHS outlived the National Board of Health and emerged in the 1890s reinvigorated is a testament to Hamilton's skills as a political negotiator as well as a bureaucrat. Under his tenure, MHS gained authorities to establish a national quarantine
on sea and land (interstate), formal recognition of merit-based requirements for a Commissioned Corps of medical officers, and a new laboratory
devoted to bacteriology
, the newest public health science of the day.
epidemic of 1878 that raged along the Mississippi River Valley and the Asiatic cholera epidemic of 1892, which hit New York City
with particular ferocity. Sanitary cordons, or quarantine
, were the primary response to yellow fever, to block the progress of disease believed to be conveyed not only on boats and foot traffic but also now by railroad. Instituting quarantines, however, meant Federal intervention into what was widely held to be state police powers and met resistance in the southeastern United States where the issue of yellow fever, and its impact on trade, were most critical.
Advocates of a National Board of Health, including Army Surgeon John Shaw Billings
, were spurred to action by the insufficient funding allotted to the Quarantine Act of 1878. Over the following four years, Hamilton would press Billings at every turn, in a protracted, ultimately successful effort to regain authorities and recognition of MHS as the central Federal public health agency. When Billings began publishing MHS's Bulletin under the Board's auspices, Hamilton countered by persuading Congress to fund new Marine Hospitals in locations like Sitka, Alaska, to strengthen collaboration with the Revenue Cutter Service (predecessor to the United States Coast Guard
).
The Board distributed grants-in-aid to state and territorial health departments for what were called "inland quarantines" but had a mixed record in regulating the uses to which grants were put and made political enemies when it attempted to quell yellow fever by means of a quarantine station on Ship Island, near New Orleans.
While the Board struggled with clumsy administrative mechanisms, Hamilton demonstrated how MHS's relationships with customs inspectors and the Revenue Cutter Service enabled a quick and effective quarantine response to smallpox
aboard a Mississippi River
steamboat at Fort Benton, Montana Territory (May 1882), and how MHS blocked yellow fever in Mexico from entry into Brownsville, Texas by means of a sanitary cordon hastily assembled around the region. Congress recognized Hamilton's leadership and in 1882 and 1883 awarded MHS a $100,000 fund for investigating epidemics, monies that had been slated for the Board. When Billings and his colleagues attempted to revive the idea of a National Board as a new Bureau of Health within the Department of the Interior, Hamilton announced that during August 1887 MHS had established a Hygienic Laboratory (predecessor to the National Institutes of Health), where Dr. Joseph J. Kinyoun
and his staff were applying the new science of bacteriology to examine cholera. In the end, the National Board of Health lost both funding and support from Congress, which gave the Board's enlarged authorities, and its quarantine stations, to MHS.
Issues surrounding the practice of quarantine drove Hamilton's work in public health. It was no coincidence that the Hygienic Laboratory began in an attic at Staten Island's Marine Hospital, near Ellis Island
, the single busiest port of entry for immigrants during this period. Earlier on, Hamilton had established a Marine Hospital on Bedloe's Island, future site of the Statue of Liberty
. Although MHS would not receive formal authority to issue domestic quarantines until 1893, Hamilton and his staff worked with the Congress to advance incremental changes toward a national policy. Maritime quarantine legislation (Act of August 1, 1888) strengthened the Act of 1878, adding new Federal quarantine stations along the East and West coasts; March 1891 legislation made medical inspection of immigrants part of MHS's duties; and interstate quarantine legislation (Act of March 27, 1890) gave MHS authority to establish quarantines against epidemic cholera, yellow fever, smallpox, and plague. On the request of his successor, Surgeon General Walter Wyman
, Hamilton also returned to New York during the 1892 cholera pandemic, to set up a quarantine camp at Sandy Hook (Camp Low).
He was not able, however, to win an equal footing for MHS's Commissioned Corps with the salaries and ranks accorded to military medical officers and as a result, resigned his post as Surgeon General on June 1, 1891.
, and as editor of the new Journal of the American Medical Association
(1893–1898).
Rather than accept an assignment to San Francisco, Hamilton resigned from MHS on November 13, 1896 and accepted the position of Superintendent of the Northern Illinois State Hospital for the Insane
in Elgin, Illinois
. He would end his days at the hospital, dying there on December 24, 1898.
Surgeon General of the United States
The Surgeon General of the United States is the operational head of the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and thus the leading spokesperson on matters of public health in the federal government...
from 1879 to 1891.
Early years
Hamilton was born on at Otter Creek Township, Jersey County, IllinoisOtter Creek Township, Jersey County, Illinois
Otter Creek Township is one of eleven townships in Jersey County, Illinois, USA. As of the 2000 census, the population was 898.-Geography:According to the United States Census Bureau, Otter Creek Township covers an area of ; of this, is land and is water.-Adjacent townships:* English Township...
, near the present town of Otterville
Otterville, Illinois
Otterville is an incorporated town in Jersey County, Illinois, United States. As of the 2010 U.S. census, the town had a total population of 126.-Geography:Otterville is located at ....
. He was educated at the Hamilton School, operated by his family, and apprenticed at age 16 to physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
Joseph O. Hamilton. The following year (1864), Hamilton enlisted in G Company, 61st Illinois Regiment. After the close of the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, he attended Rush Medical College
Rush Medical College
Rush Medical College is the medical school of Rush University, a private university in Chicago, Illinois. Rush Medical College was one of the first medical colleges in the state of Illinois and was chartered in 1837, two days before the city of Chicago was chartered, and opened with 22 students on...
in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
(1869, MD
Doctor of Medicine
Doctor of Medicine is a doctoral degree for physicians. The degree is granted by medical schools...
) and entered private practice.
Marine Hospital Service (MHS)
Hamilton's wartime experiences exerted their influence, drawing him from private medical practice into a commission as an Assistant SurgeonSurgery
Surgery is an ancient medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a patient to investigate and/or treat a pathological condition such as disease or injury, or to help improve bodily function or appearance.An act of performing surgery may be called a surgical...
in the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
(1874) and after he resigned from the Army, into the Regular Corps of the Marine Hospital Service
Marine Hospital Service
The Marine-Hospital Service was an organization of Marine Hospitals dedicated to the care of ill and disabled seamen in the U.S. Merchant Marine, U.S. Coast Guard and other federal beneficiaries....
(MHS). In 1876, the 24 year old Hamilton sat for the first examination for entrance into MHS, passed with flying colors, and was commissioned as an Assistant Surgeon on Oct 21, 1876. His talent in public health practice revealed itself early, during an 1877 assignment to the Boston Marine Hospital at Chelsea, Massachusetts
Chelsea, Massachusetts
Chelsea is a city in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, United States directly across the Mystic River from the city of Boston. It is the smallest city in Massachusetts in land area, and the 26th most densely populated incorporated place in the country.-History:...
. Changing land use in the area had blocked hospital sewage
Sewage
Sewage is water-carried waste, in solution or suspension, that is intended to be removed from a community. Also known as wastewater, it is more than 99% water and is characterized by volume or rate of flow, physical condition, chemical constituents and the bacteriological organisms that it contains...
from draining properly, causing unexpected outbreaks of infectious disease
Infectious disease
Infectious diseases, also known as communicable diseases, contagious diseases or transmissible diseases comprise clinically evident illness resulting from the infection, presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism...
among patients. Hamilton resolved the crisis successfully by directing a renovation of the facility's drainage and sewage systems.
Surgeon General
On April 3, 1879 Hamilton was appointed Supervising Surgeon GeneralSurgeon General of the United States
The Surgeon General of the United States is the operational head of the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and thus the leading spokesperson on matters of public health in the federal government...
, succeeding fellow Army veteran and Chicagoan Dr. John Woodworth
John Maynard Woodworth
John Maynard Woodworth was an American physician and member of the Woodworth political family. He served as the first Supervising-Surgeon General under U.S. president Ulysses S. Grant, then changed to Surgeon General of the United States Marine Hospital Service from 1871 to 1879.-Early...
, the first Supervising Surgeon. Woodworth had died in office, amidst a political battle with the fledgling American Public Health Association
American Public Health Association
The American Public Health Association is Washington, D.C.-based professional organization for public health professionals in the United States. Founded in 1872 by Dr. Stephen Smith, APHA has more than 30,000 members worldwide...
and its allies in the United States Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
over the possibility that a new National Board of Health would supersede the newly revamped MHS (1871).
That MHS outlived the National Board of Health and emerged in the 1890s reinvigorated is a testament to Hamilton's skills as a political negotiator as well as a bureaucrat. Under his tenure, MHS gained authorities to establish a national quarantine
Quarantine
Quarantine is compulsory isolation, typically to contain the spread of something considered dangerous, often but not always disease. The word comes from the Italian quarantena, meaning forty-day period....
on sea and land (interstate), formal recognition of merit-based requirements for a Commissioned Corps of medical officers, and a new laboratory
Laboratory
A laboratory is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which scientific research, experiments, and measurement may be performed. The title of laboratory is also used for certain other facilities where the processes or equipment used are similar to those in scientific laboratories...
devoted to bacteriology
Bacteriology
Bacteriology is the study of bacteria. This subdivision of microbiology involves the identification, classification, and characterization of bacterial species...
, the newest public health science of the day.
Development of quarantine policy
Two national epidemics framed Hamilton's tenure: the yellow feverYellow fever
Yellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease. The virus is a 40 to 50 nm enveloped RNA virus with positive sense of the Flaviviridae family....
epidemic of 1878 that raged along the Mississippi River Valley and the Asiatic cholera epidemic of 1892, which hit New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
with particular ferocity. Sanitary cordons, or quarantine
Quarantine
Quarantine is compulsory isolation, typically to contain the spread of something considered dangerous, often but not always disease. The word comes from the Italian quarantena, meaning forty-day period....
, were the primary response to yellow fever, to block the progress of disease believed to be conveyed not only on boats and foot traffic but also now by railroad. Instituting quarantines, however, meant Federal intervention into what was widely held to be state police powers and met resistance in the southeastern United States where the issue of yellow fever, and its impact on trade, were most critical.
Advocates of a National Board of Health, including Army Surgeon John Shaw Billings
John Shaw Billings
John Shaw Billings was an American librarian and surgeon best known as the modernizer of the Library of the Surgeon General's Office of the Army and as the first director of the New York Public Library.-Biography:...
, were spurred to action by the insufficient funding allotted to the Quarantine Act of 1878. Over the following four years, Hamilton would press Billings at every turn, in a protracted, ultimately successful effort to regain authorities and recognition of MHS as the central Federal public health agency. When Billings began publishing MHS's Bulletin under the Board's auspices, Hamilton countered by persuading Congress to fund new Marine Hospitals in locations like Sitka, Alaska, to strengthen collaboration with the Revenue Cutter Service (predecessor to the United States Coast Guard
United States Coast Guard
The United States Coast Guard is a branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven U.S. uniformed services. The Coast Guard is a maritime, military, multi-mission service unique among the military branches for having a maritime law enforcement mission and a federal regulatory agency...
).
The Board distributed grants-in-aid to state and territorial health departments for what were called "inland quarantines" but had a mixed record in regulating the uses to which grants were put and made political enemies when it attempted to quell yellow fever by means of a quarantine station on Ship Island, near New Orleans.
While the Board struggled with clumsy administrative mechanisms, Hamilton demonstrated how MHS's relationships with customs inspectors and the Revenue Cutter Service enabled a quick and effective quarantine response to smallpox
Smallpox
Smallpox was an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning "spotted", or varus, meaning "pimple"...
aboard a Mississippi River
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
steamboat at Fort Benton, Montana Territory (May 1882), and how MHS blocked yellow fever in Mexico from entry into Brownsville, Texas by means of a sanitary cordon hastily assembled around the region. Congress recognized Hamilton's leadership and in 1882 and 1883 awarded MHS a $100,000 fund for investigating epidemics, monies that had been slated for the Board. When Billings and his colleagues attempted to revive the idea of a National Board as a new Bureau of Health within the Department of the Interior, Hamilton announced that during August 1887 MHS had established a Hygienic Laboratory (predecessor to the National Institutes of Health), where Dr. Joseph J. Kinyoun
Joseph J. Kinyoun
Joseph James Kinyoun MD was founder and first director 1887-1899 of the United States' Hygienic Laboratory, the predecessor of the National Institutes of Health.- Early life :...
and his staff were applying the new science of bacteriology to examine cholera. In the end, the National Board of Health lost both funding and support from Congress, which gave the Board's enlarged authorities, and its quarantine stations, to MHS.
Issues surrounding the practice of quarantine drove Hamilton's work in public health. It was no coincidence that the Hygienic Laboratory began in an attic at Staten Island's Marine Hospital, near Ellis Island
Ellis Island
Ellis Island in New York Harbor was the gateway for millions of immigrants to the United States. It was the nation's busiest immigrant inspection station from 1892 until 1954. The island was greatly expanded with landfill between 1892 and 1934. Before that, the much smaller original island was the...
, the single busiest port of entry for immigrants during this period. Earlier on, Hamilton had established a Marine Hospital on Bedloe's Island, future site of the Statue of Liberty
Statue of Liberty
The Statue of Liberty is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, designed by Frédéric Bartholdi and dedicated on October 28, 1886...
. Although MHS would not receive formal authority to issue domestic quarantines until 1893, Hamilton and his staff worked with the Congress to advance incremental changes toward a national policy. Maritime quarantine legislation (Act of August 1, 1888) strengthened the Act of 1878, adding new Federal quarantine stations along the East and West coasts; March 1891 legislation made medical inspection of immigrants part of MHS's duties; and interstate quarantine legislation (Act of March 27, 1890) gave MHS authority to establish quarantines against epidemic cholera, yellow fever, smallpox, and plague. On the request of his successor, Surgeon General Walter Wyman
Walter Wyman
Walter Wyman was an American physician and soldier. He was appointed the third Surgeon General of the United States from 1891 until his death in 1911.-Early years:...
, Hamilton also returned to New York during the 1892 cholera pandemic, to set up a quarantine camp at Sandy Hook (Camp Low).
Administrative reforms
Hamilton made limited progress with the Congress realizing Woodworth's reform plans to set MHS on sound fiscal and professional moorings. The Shipping Act of June 26, 1884 replaced the hospital tax charged to merchant seamen in favor of financing health services by means of a tonnage tax on foreign ships landing in domestic ports, supplemented by deficiency appropriations. And after Hamilton issued regulations specifying competitive examinations for entrance into a corps of medical officers, the Congress formally authorized the Commissioned Corps with the Act of January 4, 1889.He was not able, however, to win an equal footing for MHS's Commissioned Corps with the salaries and ranks accorded to military medical officers and as a result, resigned his post as Surgeon General on June 1, 1891.
Personal life
Hamilton was recommissioned as a Surgeon and assigned to Chicago's Marine Hospital. Hamilton led a full professional life, serving as a Professor of Surgery at his alma mater, Rush Medical CollegeRush Medical College
Rush Medical College is the medical school of Rush University, a private university in Chicago, Illinois. Rush Medical College was one of the first medical colleges in the state of Illinois and was chartered in 1837, two days before the city of Chicago was chartered, and opened with 22 students on...
, and as editor of the new Journal of the American Medical Association
Journal of the American Medical Association
The Journal of the American Medical Association is a weekly, peer-reviewed, medical journal, published by the American Medical Association. Beginning in July 2011, the editor in chief will be Howard C. Bauchner, vice chairman of pediatrics at Boston University’s School of Medicine, replacing ...
(1893–1898).
Rather than accept an assignment to San Francisco, Hamilton resigned from MHS on November 13, 1896 and accepted the position of Superintendent of the Northern Illinois State Hospital for the Insane
Elgin State Hospital
The Elgin Mental Health Center is a mental health facility operated by the State of Illinois in Elgin, Illinois. Although during its history, its mission has changed, at times it treated mental illness, tuberculosis, and provided federally-funded care for veterans...
in Elgin, Illinois
Elgin, Illinois
Elgin is a city in northern Illinois located roughly northwest of Chicago on the Fox River. Most of Elgin lies within Kane County, Illinois, with a portion in Cook County, Illinois...
. He would end his days at the hospital, dying there on December 24, 1898.