Nation’s First Public Health Lab

Providence will soon be home to a new $82M state of art public health laboratory in the Jewelry District alongside Brown's Medical School, scheduled to be completed in 2025. But did you know that Providence was home to the nation's first municipal bacteriological public health laboratory created by a Ward 2 resident?

One of the earliest public health laboratories was built in 1888 by Dr. Gardner T Swarts, who was staff at the Providence Board of Health and went on to lead the American Public Health Association. Swartz and Providence superintendent of health Charles Chapin are credited with building the lab that helped the city battle typhoid, small pox and cholera and flu pandemics.

Dr. Swarts lived at 21 Manning Street (now part of the Brown campus) and is buried in Swan Point cemetery. 

(image: rendering of proposed new state public health lab)

> Learn more about our current state public health lab here
> The First State Board of Health Laboratories in the United States, 1954
> RI Medical Journal, 2020