Valentine Seaman

Valentine Seaman (April 2, 1770 – July 3, 1817) was an American physician who introduced the smallpox vaccine to the United States and mapped yellow fever in New York City. His contributions to public health also include women's education in nursing and midwifery.

Early life and education Seaman was born in 1770 in New York. His family were Quakers. His father, Willet Seaman, was a descendant of Captain John Seaman, who sailed to North America from Brightlington, England, in 1620, settling thereafter in Hempstead, Long Island.

Seaman began his studies in medicine in New York under Nicholas Romayne, one of the founders of Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons. He earned his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1792, studying under Benjamin Rush and Adam Kuhn and writing a dissertation on opium use.

He settled in New York City on Beekman Street with his wife and 10 children. He wrote, in a 1796 account of the epidemic, that he was indebted to Benjamin Rush for "innovations in the treatment of the Epidemic Fever of Philadelphia of 1793." The city's Committee of Health asked for his advice regarding the disease's cause and prevention; Seaman recommended filling in areas that were below sea-level and wherever water tended to stagnate, cleaning and paving streets, covering sewers, and filling in the areas beneath granaries and docks. A fuller account and the maps he created were published in An Inquiry into the Cause of the Prevalence of the Yellow Fever in New-York in 1798.

Introduction of vaccination to the United States His first child, Betsy, died of smallpox in 1795, a tragedy that spurred Seaman to identify preventative measures. At the time, vaccinations were not understood or trusted in the United States. Edward Jenner, a British physician, had just introduced vaccination in England. Seaman acquired the vaccination serum from Jenner and, in 1799, successfully vaccinated his own children with it. They were the first people to be vaccinated in the United States.

Education Seaman taught medicine as well, focusing in particular on women's education. In 1798–9, Seaman founded the first instructional classes for nurses at New York Hospital, which continued until 1817. Seaman was the first American physician to teach a class of women in midwifery in the almshouse (charitable housing for the poor). He wrote The Midwives Monitor in 1800 for their instruction.