1762 – Boisseau suggested chemical treatment of sewage
Boisseau suggested chemical treatment of sewage.
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1750 – First street cleaning Department in North America
While government showed little interest in development of waste management systems, a few people took on the cause individually. For instance, in 1739, Benjamin Franklin and his neighbors unsuccessfully petitioned the Pennsylvania Assembly to stop waste dumping and remove tanneries from Philadelphia’s commercial district. Mr. Franklin also worked to improve sanitary and safety conditions in…
1712 – The first position of “State Health Officer” in North America
The General Assembly of Carolina created the first position of “State Health Officer” in North America.
1647 – Massachusetts (U.S.) passed a temporary quarantine law
Shifting over to the New World, in colonial America, quarantine was always handled as a local matter by individual colonies. The earliest evidence of quarantine was in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1647. This was implemented because of plague in the West Indies. But this was very much a local jurisdiction, interwoven immensely with commerce.…
1631 – The General Assembly of Virginia enacted a law to collect vital statistics
The Colony of Virginia passed an act for the collection of vital statistics, requiring the recording of births and deaths, when a law directed ministers or churchwardens in each parish to present a “register of all burials, christenings, and marriages” yearly at the June meeting of the court. A similar act passed in 1659 stated…
1610 – In the Virginia colony, the first hygiene law was established in North America
In the Virginia colony, the first hygiene law was established in North America.
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1558 – Luigi Cornaro publishes treatise on personal hygiene
The connection between long life and personal hygiene was an important par of Hipocratic medicine and was later popularized by scores of works on proper living, most notably those of Luigi Cornaro and George Cheyne. Cornaro’s Trattato de la vita sobria, first published in 1558, and George Cheyne’s Essay of Health and Long life, published…
1524 – First ordinances for control of human creta
First ordinances for control of human excreta and slaughter houses in new world issued by Cortez for Spanish colonies.
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1519 – First quarantine established in the new world at Santo Domingo
The most ruinous diseases which flourished in the New World were smallpox, measles, influenza, plague and tuberculosis. The last named seemed to be especially threatening to people aged between fifteen and forty, that is, the hard – working elements of the population. The indigenous people of the New World were often affected by several of…
1518 – Nuremberg ordinance regulating sale of food
Nuremberg ordinance regulating sale of food.
1486 – Statute by Henry VH regulating slaughter houses
Statute by Henry VH regulating slaughter houses.