Valentine Seaman, MD Collection

Valentine Seaman, MD, was an attending physician at the New York Hospital and is most remembered for his public health work, specifically the introduction of smallpox vaccines and his work mapping yellow fever outbreaks in New York City at the end of the 18th century.

Seaman was born in Queens County, New York in 1770 to Willet Seaman, a New York City merchant. Rather than join his father’s business, Seaman pursued his desire of becoming a doctor. Seaman began his medical studies under the tutelage of Dr. Nicholas Romayne at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, but he eventually completed his medical degree at the University of Pennsylvania in 1792, studying under eminent physicians Benjamin Rush and Adam Kuhn. After completing medical school, Seaman returned to New York City, settling on Beekman Street with his wife and their ten children.

After his first child died of smallpox in 1795, Seaman began to study smallpox in great detail, attempting to develop preventative measures. During his research, Seaman discovered the work of a British physician named Edward Jenner, who had just introduced the idea of vaccinations in England. Seaman was able to acquire a sample of Jenner’s smallpox vaccine and successfully vaccinated his own children against the disease. Seaman and his family were amongst the first in the United States to be vaccinated against any disease, and this served as a major catalyst for Seaman’s work within the realm of inoculation and public health research, as well as his strong support for vaccines.

Additionally in 1795, a yellow fever epidemic hit New York City. The cause of the illness was unknown, but as the fever spread throughout New York City, Seaman mapped each case in an attempt to locate a cause for the outbreak. After studying several waste sites and maps of New York City, Seaman concluded that they were the origins of the yellow fever outbreak. At the time, Seaman was not aware of the role that mosquitos played as vectors of disease, but he was correct in his suspicion of these locations.

Seaman worked as an attending physician at the New York Hospital from 1796 until his death in 1817. In 1799, Seaman founded a nursing program that continued until 1817. Through this nursing program, he assisted in improving the art of midwifery. Seaman also published The Midwives Monitor in 1800, which was the first instructional manual on midwifery published in the United States. In 1801, Seaman was the first to institute clinical lectures at the New-York Hospital.

Valentine Seaman died at age 47 of tuberculosis in New York City in 1817.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Historic Maps Collection, Princeton University Library. “First X, Then Y, Now Z: Landmark Thematic Maps – Medicine. Accessed December 15, 2020. https://static-prod.lib.princeton.edu/visual_materials/maps/websites/thematic-maps/quantitative/medicine/medicine.html

“Nursing Collections at the Medical Center Archives.” The Medical Center Archives of NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medicine. Accessed December 15, 2020. https://library.weill.cornell.edu/archives-blog/nursing-collections-medical-center-archives “NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell.” The Medical Center Archives of NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medicine. Accessed December 15, 2020. https://library.weill.cornell.edu/archives/newyork-presbyterian-hospitalweill-cornell

Seaman, Valentine. An inaugural dissertation on opium. Johnston and Justice, 1792. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/evans/N19041.0001.001/?view=toc

Seaman, Valentine. An inquiry into the cause of the prevalence of the yellow fever in New-York. T. and J. Swords, 1798. https://archive.org/details/101290761.nlm.nih.gov

Wikipedia. “Valentine Seaman.” Accessed December 15, 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20210502022833/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentine_Seaman

Wilson, James Grant. The Memorial History of the City of New-York. New-York History Company, 1893. https://archive.org/details/memorialhistory05wilsgoog/mode/2up?view=theater