Joseph Yates Porter

The city's first native born physician, Dr. Joseph Yates Porter, went to medical school in the Carolinas during the Civil War, according to Patterson, who is writing a book about him.
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Porter became an expert in the field, visiting Jacksonville in 1888 during a yellow fever epidemic when the mortality rate for the disease was 25-50 percent.
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Edward A. Perry organized a state board of health with Porter as its first State Health Officer.

1889 Dr. Joseph Y. Porter of Key West was worn in today as the first Florida State Health Officer.

There was an election of officers in anticipation of the adoption of the constitution; the constitution of the Virginia association was available and adopted with few changes; a communication was received from Dr. Joseph Y. Porter of the infant State Board of Health organized in 1889, asking cooperation in the Rules and Regulations Governing Disinterment and Transportation of the Dead and the reporting of deaths; and a series of lectures on embalming were conducted by Professor Clarke.
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In 1889, after a yellow fever epidemic in Jacksonville that killed a couple hundred people, Governor Bloxham called a Special Session of the Legislature, which in 20 days set up a State Board of Health (a board that the Medical Association had been trying in the 1860s, 70s, and 80s to have the legislature set-up and failed.) In 1892, the infant board, under Dr. Joseph Y. Porter, set up a very rudimental Rules and Regulation for the caring of the dead.Until that time, there were none except in a few of the larger cities.These were rules he mentioned in his communication to the first funeral convention.

Vital Statistics was another matter the Board of Health addressed very early.The Legislature, in its wisdom or lack of it, passed legislation calling on the counties to set up County Health Departments, and they were to collect and transmit to the State Board of Vital Statistics in their county.Some counties did, in a small way, but overall it did not work.

Late in 1893, Dr. Porter set up a system of mailing penny postcards (Yes, they had them!) to the doctors and midwives and asked them to send in the births and deaths.By 1912 this system fell apart, and Dr. Porter said, "…for without entering into legal proceedings, it was found to be an impossible task."
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Joseph Y. Porter, State Health Officer

It was built in 1911 by Joseph Yates Porter, MD, who served as President of the FMA in 1886 and was also Florida's first State Health Officer.

The Museum will be in the original State Board of Health Building in Jacksonville, built in 1911 by the first Florida State Health Officer, Joseph Yates Porter, MD, who served as President of the FMA in 1886.

This building was built in 1911 by Florida's first State Health Officer, Joseph Yates Porter, M.D., who served as President of the FMA from 1886 to 1887.