Ernest
A. Sweet of Great Barrington, was a veteran of 37 years' service in the U.S.
Public Health Service. He was born in
Great Barrington on July 6, 1876 and was the son of Norris and Maria Morrison
Sweet. He was an 1893 graduate of
Searles High School, and two years later graduated from Westfield Normal
School. After teaching assignments in West Cummington and Mittineague, he
entered the Albany Medical School, in Albany, NY and graduated in 1900. Based on his excellent performance at Albany
Medical School, he received an internship to work at Albany Hospital in 1900. He
married Minnie E. Mann on December 31, 1901. He entered the U. S. Public Health
Service on May 2, 1904 as an Assistant Surgeon after practicing medicine for
three years in Housatonic. Two days
after his appointment he was assigned to the New York immigration station. His
life was one of constantly changing assignments. The following year on
September 11, 1905, he was sent to Fort Station, New Mexico. Three years later, on July 29, 1908, he
successfully completed his examinations and became a Passed Assistant Surgeon. In
ensuing years, he conducted ground breaking research on tuberculosis
transmission patterns amongst migrant TB cases in Texas in 1913, publishing the
results of his study in 1915 in the April 9, 1915 issue of Public Health
Reports.[1] In 1918 he published very
popular guidance on safe milk and the field identification of malaria carrying
mosquitoes which was reviewed in the Surgeon General’s Annual Report for 1918.[2]
During his brief one year tenure as the commanding
officer in Boston (August 1935 to August 1936), the Service began to deemphasize
the use of the Gallops Island quarantine station. Nevertheless, this change had
little impact on the overwhelming workload of the quarantine station. In 1936, he
oversaw the inspection of 822 vessels as well as the medical examination of
56,985 crew and 28,321 passengers, making Boston the third busiest port in
America behind New York and Los Angeles. While in the service his tours of duty
included Germany, Greece, Cuba, Hawaii and several places in the United States.
He retired from the service in 1941 with the rank of medical director. For many years Sweet was a director of the
National Mahaiwe Bank of Great Barrington. He died January 25, 1964, at his
Berkshire Heights Road residence in Great Barrington, Vermont. He is buried in
Elmwood Cemetery in Great Barrington.[3]
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