RARE “Public Health Pioneer” William Sedgwick Hand Written Letter Dated 1889 COA For Sale

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RARE “Public Health Pioneer” William Sedgwick Hand Written Letter Dated 1889 COA:
$999.99

Up for sale "Bacteriologist" William Thompson Sedgwick Hand Written Letter. Here is a chance to own a piece of scientific history! This item is authenticated By Todd

Mueller Autographs and comes with their certificate of authenticity.

ES-2526 

William

Thompson Sedgwick (December

29, 1855 – January 25, 1921) was a teacher, epidemiologist, bacteriologist, and

a key figure in shaping public health in the United States. He was president of many scientific and

professional organizations during his lifetime including president of the

American Public Health Association in 1915. He was one of three founders of the

joint MIT-Harvard School of Public Health in 1913. William T. Sedgwick was born

on December 29, 1855 in West Hartford, CT. He was the son of William Sedgwick

and Anne Thompson Sedgwick. In 1877, he received his undergraduate degree from

the Sheffield Scientific

School at Yale University. He studied for two years at the Yale

School of Medicine where he was also an instructor in physiological chemistry

(1878–9). He left Yale to take up studies at Johns Hopkins University in

physiology. He became interested in biology and changed his course of study

graduating with a PhD in biology in 1881. He remained at Hopkins for two years

as an associate in biology. In 1883, Sedgwick was appointed to the faculty at

MIT. He was promoted to associate professor in 1884 and to full professor in

1891. He became head of what ultimately became known as the Department of

Biology at MIT.

In 1888, Sedgwick began giving lectures in bacteriology to students in

the civil engineering curriculum. His students became the spokesmen and practitioners

who brought the principles of public health into the practice of engineering

beginning in the 1890s and lasting well into the 20th century.

While he has been hailed as the first scientific American epidemiologist,

Sedgwick was also described as not having a mathematical mind. He taught ideas

and principles to his students. He instilled in his students the need to

develop three basic behaviors: a vision of the subject in relation to the

broader world, an honest method of working to seek the truth and an enthusiasm

for service to the profession the public.

In 1902, he published the groundbreaking book, Principles of Sanitary

Science and the Public Health, which was a compilation of his lectures from the

courses he taught at MIT and a distillation of his experience working in the

field. Sedgwick influenced many practitioners in the field of public

health. He played a key role in Samuel Cate Prescott's

choice to go into bacteriology as a

career, and was instrumental in Prescott's selection in the canning research with William Lyman Underwood in

1895–6 that would lead to the growth of food technology. Sedgwick’s courses at MIT and his influence

on civil engineering students there can be considered the first instructions in

the field of public health. However, he and two colleagues felt that a more

formal academic structure was needed. In 1913, he joined with George C. Whipple

and Milton J. Rosenau to establish the Harvard-MIT School for Public Health

Officers. This was the first formal academic program designed to train public

health professionals. The joint program lasted until 1922 when Harvard

University decided to launch the Harvard School of Public Health. Beginning in 1888, Sedgwick

was appointed as consulting biologist to the Massachusetts State Board of

Health. He directed bacteriological research at the Lawrence Experiment Station

and sent his brightest engineering students to work there—including George W. Fuller and Allen Hazen. Even though he was not known for his laboratory

research studies, he was responsible, along with George W. Rafter in 1889, for

developing the enumeration procedure and apparatus for examining microscopic

organisms in surface water bodies. The Sedgwick-Rafter counting cell is still

in use today. The Lawrence Experiment Station annual reports highlighted

Sedgwick’s role as an epidemiologist. “In epidemiology, Sedgwick played a more

direct and personal role and he was, indeed, the first scientific used the annual report covering the work done in

1891 as a vehicle to publish his epidemiological studies of typhoid fever. “In

the Annual Report of the State Board of Health of Massachusetts for 1892,

Sedgwick presented studies on typhoid fever epidemics at Lowell and Lawrence,

at Springfield and at Bondsville, which were classics in the field and which make

this one of the most outstanding volumes in the history of epidemiology.” At

the end of the 19th century, the water supply for Jersey City, New Jersey was

contaminated with sewage and the death toll from typhoid fever was high. In

1899, the city contracted with a private company for the construction of a new

water supply on the Rockaway River, which

included a dam, reservoir and 23-mile pipeline The project was completed

on May 23, 1904; however, no treatment was provided to the water supply,

because the contract did not require it. The city, claiming that the contract

provisions were not fulfilled, filed a lawsuit in the Chancery Court of New

Jersey. Jersey City officials complained that the water served to the city was

not "pure and wholesome." Sedgwick testified as an expert witness for

the plaintiffs in both trials. In the first trial, he testified that the water

that was supplied to the city was contaminated with bacteria from sewage

discharges in the watershed above the reservoir. In the second

trial, Sedgwick disagreed strongly with the proposal by John L. Leal to treat the water from the reservoir

with calcium hypochlorite,

which was called chloride of lime at that time. Instead, he believed that the

construction of sewers in the watershed and a sewage disposal plant would be

the preferable course of action. He also testified that chlorination did not

remove organic matter, particulates and other filth, which could weaken the

vital resistance of water consumers. However, the chlorination system was found

to be safe, effective and reliable by the Special Master, William J. Magie, and was judged capable of supplying Jersey

City with water that was "pure and wholesome

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