page_title: Benjamin Waterhouse
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Benjamin Waterhouse / Biography / Early life
context_page_description: Benjamin Waterhouse was a physician, co-founder and professor of Harvard Medical School. He is most well known for being the first doctor to test the smallpox vaccine in the United States, which he carried out on his own family.
context_section_description: Waterhouse was born into a Quaker family, although he never adopted the religion as his own. His parents were Timothy Waterhouse, a chair maker who also served on the Governor's Council, and Hannah Waterhouse. Born and raised in Rhode Island, his medical career began at age 16, when he apprenticed for a doctor in his hometown. At age 21, he left the United States to study medicine in Europe at several notable institutions, such as with Dr. John Fothergill in London, England. He was also educated in Edinburgh at the University of Edinburgh Medical School. He matriculated Oct. 28, 1778 at the Leiden University in The Netherlands and received at the same University his medical degree Apr. 19, 1780. The title description of his thesis is: Dissertatio medica De sympathia partium corporis humani, ejusque, in explicandis et curandis morbis necessaria consideratione ... - Lugduni Batavorum : Th. Koet, 1780. - 38 p. ; 25 cm. His thesis is dedicated to John Fothergill, M.D., "inspirer of my studies." 
  While living in the Netherlands, he roomed with future US President John Adams.
caption: Portrait of Waterhouse by Gilbert Stuart, 1775
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