Leonard White (physician)

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Leonard White, MD

Contents

[edit] Early Life

Leonard White was born in 1856. He is not to be confused with another Lenoard White, also from Massachusetts, but from the 18th century.

[edit] Education and Career

He studied medicine and became a physician and later also as "the local health officer" who served at Uxbridge, Massachusetts in the late 19th Century and early 20th century.

[edit] Significance of Career and Public Health History

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. In 1905, the state board of health, ordered the town to move its water supply, due to contamination from the polluted river.[3]

[edit] Afterwards

In 2000, a publication, "Uxbridge, Images of America", by B Mae Wrona, was completed. It shows Dr. Leonard White's house in Uxbridge, on Douglas Street, next to where Snowling Rd is located today. 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, later confirmed specifically for malaria by Ronald Ross in India circa 1898. Malaria is a protozoan disease carried by aedes aegypti mosquitoes, as a "vector".

[edit] References

  1. ^ Shrady, George F, Editor (1885). "Medical Record, A Weekly Journal of Medicine and Surgery", Vol 28, No 24, December 12, 1885. New York City: William Wood & Company, p.651. 
  2. ^ "A History of Mosquitoes in Massachusetts, by Curtis R. Best". Northeast mosquito control association. Retrieved on 2008-03-31.
  3. ^ (1905) ‘Annual Report of the State Board of Health of Massachusetts”. Public Documents of Massachusetts; Google Books, p. 52. 

[edit] Reference with local photos

1. Wrona, B. Mae., Uxbridge, Images of America; 2000; Arcadia Publishing Company; ISBN 0738504610