Health Office history

1804 - The Boston Marine Hospital is established in the Charlestown section of Boston.

In 1799 a law was enacted which made naval officers, seamen, and marines beneficiaries of the Marine Hospital Fund, with the secretary of the navy making the pay deductions and contribution, a circumstance that endured until 1811 when the navy started its own hospital system.

Edwin Chadwick, a London lawyer and secretary of the Poor Law Commission in 1838, is one of the most recognized names in the sanitary reform movement.

1842 - Lemuel Shattuck, a Massachusetts legislator, established the first US system for recording births, deaths and marriages.

Chadwick's report was quite controversial, but eventually many of his suggestions were adopted in the Public Health Act of 1848.

1849 - The Massachusetts legislature appointed a Sanitary Commission 'to prepare and report to the next General Court a plan for a sanitary survey of the State', with Shattuck as Chief Commissioner and author of its report.

He studied natural history and medicine in Chicago, graduating from Rush Medical College in 1862 and joining the Union Army.

Woodworth borrowed the military model which was the only extant of appointment to public office in the 1870 and adopted it to the service.

The act also raised the hospital tax from twenty cents to forty cents until 1884.

In 1887 the Laboratory of Hygiene was created within Marine Hospital in Staten Island, NY to conduct research on cholera and several other infectious diseases.

In January 4, 1889 President Grover Cleveland signed an Act to regulate appointments in the Marine Hospital Service of the United States.

In 1891 he identified the presence of fecal bacteria in water as the cause of typhoid fever and developed the first sewage treatment techniques.

1894 - The first epidemic of polio strikes the United States.

In 1902 the Marine Hospital Service expanded to the Public Health and Marine Hospital Service to reflect growing responsibilities.

In 1906, Congress passed the Food and Drug Act, which initiated controls on the manufacture, labeling, and sale of food.

1912 - The PHMHS was renamed the United States Public Health Service, and it was authorized to investigate human diseases such as, tuberculosis, hookworm, malaria, and leprosy), sanitation, water supplies and sewage disposal.

1916 - Johns Hopkins University founds the first school of public health in the the United States with a grant of $267,000 from the Rockefeller Foundation.

During the following few years, discoveries of bacteriologic agents of disease were made in European and American laboratories for such contagious diseases as tuberculosis, diphtheria, typhoid, and yellow fever. (Winslow, 1923)

1925 All states begin participating in national reporting of disease

In the early twentieth century, the role of the state and local public health departments expanded greatly. For example, reporting of cancer was later added to the list, and a cancer treatment program began in 1927.

In 1938, Congress passed a second venereal disease control act, which provided federal funds to states for investigation and control of venereal diseases.

In 1939, the Federal Security Agency, housing the Public Health Service and national programs in education and welfare, was established.

The war had an enormous impact on the PHS. Not only did the war require expansion of its programs and personnel, but the PHS Act of 1944.

The National Mental Health Act, establishing the National Institute of Mental Health as a part of NIH, was passed in 1946.

1948 Richard Doll and Bradford Hill conducted a landmark epidemiologic investigation of the cause of the remarkable increase in lung cancer that had occurred during the 20th century.

1952 Polio cases surge in the US. Early testing of the vaccine developed by Jonas Salk is encouraging.

The Cabinet-level Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) was created under President Eisenhower, officially coming into existence April 11, 1953.

1954 A large scale clinical trial of the Salk vaccine begins

In 1966, Doctor Schwabe became the founding chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine at the Veterinary School at the University of California Davis.

1970 The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was established to consolidate federal research, monitoring, standard-setting and enforcement activities to ensure environmental protection.

The first public mental hospital was established in Williamsburg, Virginia in 1773. (Turner, 1977)

1981 Doctor Michael Gottlieb and his associates report on four previously healthy young men who had developed Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia.

Further, Chadwick proposed that a national board of health, local boards in each district, and district medical officers be appointed to accomplish this goal. (Chave, 1984)

In the late seventeenth century, several European cities appointed public authorities to adopt and enforce isolation and quarantine measures (and to report and record deaths from the plague). (Goudsblom, 1986)

The Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act of 1999 was signed, making it possible for millions of Americans with disabilities to join the workforce without fear of losing their Medicaid and Medicare coverage.

The Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003 was enacted - the most significant expansion of Medicare since its enactment.

In June 2007, Ronald Davis, MD, President of the American Medical Association, collaborated with Roger Mahr, DVM, President of the American Veterinary Medical Association, to establish a bond between the two organizations.

March 16-19, 2009, the Public Health Agency of Canada hosted One World, One Health™: From Ideas to Action expert consultation in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Recognizing that managing and responding to emerging infectious diseases is complex and requires multisectoral cooperation, WOAH, FAO , and WHO joined together to publish the Tripartite Concept Note in April 2010.

February 14-16, 2011, the first International One Health Congress was held in Melbourne, Australia.

February 19-22, 2012, the first One Health Summit was held in Davos, Switzerland.

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