1	A Pictorial History of Public Health in South Carolina Max Learner, Ph.D. Bureau of Maternal and Child Health Department of Health and Environmental Control February 2001
2	Colonial Times
3	Colonial Public Health Events 1670 Charles Towne is established as an English Colony Provincial Legislature forbids swine from running free in the city of Charleston and instructs all property owners to refrain from littering their land and to cut “stinking weed in and about the lots and streets.” 1698 Provincial Legislature requires incoming vessels to produce evidence that no persons on board are suffering from a contagious disease before the ship could dock in Charleston Harbor.
4	Colonial Public Health Events 1699 First yellow fever epidemic in Charleston kills about 160 of estimated 3,000 residents. “A most infectious pestilential and mortal distemper...which from Barbados or Providence was brought in among us in Charles Town about the 28th or 29th of Aug. last past....This Distemper from the time of its beginning aforesaid to the first day of November killed in Charles Town at least 160 persons.” Among the victims were the “chief justice, receiver-general, provost marshal, and almost half of the assembly.” From Duffy, Epidemics in Colonial America,1953, p. 143
5	Colonial Public Health Events A brick pest house is constructed on Sullivan’s Island for isolation of individuals suffering from contagious diseases. 1711 Yellow fever and smallpox epidemics in Charleston. Gideon Johnson wrote on November 11, 1711: “Never was there a more sickly or fatall season than this for the small Pox, Pestilential ffeavers, Pleurisies and fflux’s have destroyed numbers here of all sorts, both Whites Blacks and Indians.” From Duffy, Epidemics in Colonial America,1953, p. 75.
6	Colonial Public Health Events 1712 Provincial Legislature passes an act that created the first provincial health officer in America. Commissioner Gilbert Guttery was the first, and last, person to hold the position, which was abolished in 1721.
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9	Colonial Public Health Events 1760 Smallpox epidemic in Charleston, one of the worst in the colonial period. In a population estimated at 8,000, there were an estimated 6,000 cases and over 730 deaths, or 9% of the population. From Duffy, Epidemics in Colonial America,1953, pp. 94-95. 1790's Yellow fever epidemics occur each year in Charleston. The worst outbreak kills 362 in 1799. The 1790 population was approximately 16,920.
10	Yellow Fever Epidemics in South Carolina 1699 First yellow fever epidemic in Charleston 1700’s Yellow fever epidemics were recorded in Charleston in 1706, 1711, 1717, 1718, 1719, 1730-1739, 1745, 1748, 1790-99 1800's Yellow fever epidemics were recorded in Charleston in 1800, 1802, 1804, 1817, 1820, 1821, 1824, 1827, 1828, 1838, 1839, 1849, 1852, 1854, 1856, 1858, 1864, 1871, and 1876.
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12	Ante-Bellum Public Health 1808 The City of Charleston establishes a Board of Health with 13 commissioners. 1814 The Ladies’ Benevolent Society of Charleston begins volunteer care of the sick and needy in Charleston - this is the starting point for nursing care in South Carolina. 1824 Medical College of South Carolina is established by the state Legislature, but not funded. The faculty establish it, anyway. 1828 Robert Mills Building opens as the sixth state supported mental asylum in the United States.
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14	Public Health After the Civil War
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22	1878 US Congress passed Federal Quarantine Legislation in April A yellow fever epidemic struck the Mississippi Valley from July to October. New Orleans and Memphis were hard hit. Over 20,000 people died.
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24	Creation of the State Board of Health In December, 1878, the SC General Assembly created the State Board of Health
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27	Board of Health’s Finances State appropriation $2,000 The Secretary of the Board was a paid part-time employee. Dr. Henry Fraser was paid $500 per year. He served from 1879 to 1895 as the Secretary.
28	Public Health Issues in 1881 Bills to establish sanitary code, registration of vital statistics, licensing of the practice of medicine were introduced, but not passed Scarlet fever epidemic in Charleston German measles epidemic statewide
29	Public Health Issues in 1881 Weather Food adulteration Malaria Dysentery Consumption (Tuberculosis) Smallpox
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31	1890 Budget $2,492.67, expenditures $2,025.87 34 counties had local boards of health in one or more towns. The local boards failed to send in reports, with very few exceptions. Influenza struck the state, but was not of a deadly nature
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