WATERHOUSE, Benjamin, physician, born in Newport, Rhode Island, 4 March, 1754; died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2 October, 1846. At the age of sixteen he began the study of medicine with Dr. John Halliburton in Newport, and he subsequently continued it under Dr. John Fothergill in London, in Edinburgh, and at Leyden, where he was graduated in 1780. He began to practise in Newport, and in 1783 aided in establishing the medical school at Harvard, where he was professor of medicine from 1783 till 1812. He was also professor of natural history at Brown from 1784 till 1791, and delivered in the statehouse of Providence the first course of lectures on that science in this country. He obtained from Dr. John C. Lettsom, of Leyden, a valuable collection of' minerals, introduced their study into Harvard, and procured the establishment of a botanic garden there. In 1812 he retired from his profession and became medical supervisor of military posts in New England, holding this office until 1825. In 1799 he subjected his family to the experiment of vaccination, which he vindicated against the ridicule of the profession and the public. Dr. Waterhouse supported the measures of Thomas Jefferson in his political writings. His works include "Lectures on the Theory and Practice of Medicine" (Cambridge, 1780); " On the Principles of Vitality" (Boston, 1790); " Rise, Progress, and Present" State of Medicine " (1792); " Prospect of exterminating the Small-Pox" (1800);" Heads of a Course of Lectures on Natural History" (1810) ; "The Botanist" (1811) ; "The Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts," a novel (1816); and an essay on the "Junius" letters, in which he supports the claim of Lord Chatham to their authorship (Boston, 1831).