Health
Weymouth's First Physician
Dr. James Torrey was born in Connecticut in 1756. His first occupation was as a tanner of hides, but he then apprenticed in medicine and practiced in Lebanon, CT and then on Nantucket. He served six weeks as surgeon's mate in the Revolutionary War and was later commissioned as surgeon of the Second Regiment, First Brigade, First Division, Massachusetts Militia. In 1783 he opened a practice in South Weymouth at the corner of Pleasant St. and Union Street. For more than thirty years he was the only physician in South Weymouth until he died at the age of 61.
US Public Health Starts in Massachusetts
In 1799, The Boston Board of Health was established to combat any potential cholera outbreaks. Paul Revere was Boston's first health commissioner
In 1842 - Lemuel Shattuck, a Massachusetts legislator, established the first US system for recording births, deaths and marriages. Largely through his efforts Massachusetts legislation became the model for all the other states in the Union. Among Shattuck's many contributions were his proposal for a standard nomenclature for disease; establishment of a system for recording mortality data by age, sex, occupation, socioeconomic level, and location; the application of data to programs in immunization, school health, smoking, and alcohol abuse.
In 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. The report (1850) was enthusiastically received by the New England Journal of Medicine, but the 50 recommendations in the report were otherwise ignored. Twenty years later the Secretary of the Board of Health of Massachusetts based his plans for public health on Shattuck's recommendations.
In 1844 the Old Colony Railroad was chartered to build a railroad from Boston to Plymouth.
In 1864 the Boston City Hospital opened.