Benjamin Waterhouse (March 4, 1754, Newport, Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations – October 2, 1846, Cambridge, Massachusetts) was a physician, co-founder and professor of Harvard Medical School.

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.

[6][7] The title description of his thesis is Dissertatio medica De sympathia partium corporis humani, ejusque, in explicandis et curandis morbis necessaria consideratione.

[1] After returning to the United States in 1782, Waterhouse joined the faculty of the new medical school at Harvard as one of three professors, including John Warren and Aaron Dexter, in the area of Theory and Practice of Physic.

[2] Waterhouse first wrote to then-President John Adams, his former roommate, hoping to spread the word about cowpox vaccinations preventing smallpox.

Once Jefferson became President the following year, Waterhouse introduced Edward Jenner's method of cowpox vaccination in the United States.

He commissioned a controlled experiment at the Boston Board of Health in which 19 vaccinated and 2 unvaccinated boys were exposed to the smallpox virus.