Massachusetts, Court of General Sessions of the Peace (Worcester County). Document permitting the erection of a smallpox hospital in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, 1776 August 16. B MS Misc., Countway Library of Medicine.

Document issued by the Court of General Sessions of the Peace of Worcester County, Massachusetts, dated 16 August 1776, granting permission to Dr. Thaddeus Maccarty (1747-1802) to erect a smallpox hospital in Fitchburg, Massachusetts.

Biographical Notes

Thaddeus Maccarty (1747-1802), B.A., 1766, Yale College, New Haven, Connecticut, was a physician practicing in Fitchburg and Worcester, Massachusetts. After graduating Yale, he studied medicine with Dr. John Frink, of Rutland, Massachusetts. He opened his medical practice in Dudley, Massachusetts, in 1770, in partnership with Dr. Ebenezer Lillie. After several years, he moved to Fitchburg, where he established a smallpox hospital in partnership with Dr. James Latham, who ran smallpox hospitals in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, and Claverdale, New York. Latham had a contract with English physician William Sutton, through which he had access to the "Suttonian method" of inoculation, which included use of inoculation matter from individual with mild cases of smallpox, administration of the matter through shallow cuts, and eschewing bleeding and purging.