Abortion has been the center of political conflict for much of the last one hundred years, but especially so since the United State Supreme Court ruled in 1973, in the case of Roe v. Wade, that prohibition of abortion is an unconstitutional invasion of a woman’s right to privacy. However, the Court did allow for…
The following maps, created by the Maine Bureau of Health, illustrate the spread of AIDS cases over the past two decades. Click on each map to see a larger, clearer version. Figure 2.3 (figure numbers are from the 2009 DHHS report cited below) below illustrates Maine AIDS diagnoses by year of diagnosis from 1984 to…
April 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 1852 Incorporation of the town of Holden 1861 Fort Sumpter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina falls to Confederate forces, initiating…
April 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 1822 Incorporation of the town of Cumberland 1904 John A. Peters, State Legislator, State Attorney General, Member of Congress, and…
April 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 1771 Incorporation of the towns of Hallowell, Vassalborough (now Vassalboro), Winslow, and Winthrop. 1836 Birth date in Waterboro of Charles…
April 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 1815 Birth date of Democratic U.S. Representative (1851-1855) Moses MacDonald in Limerick. He served as Speaker of the Maine House in 1845.…
Born Martha Moore in 1735 Oxford, Massachusetts, she married Ephraim Ballard in 1754. In 1777 she joined her husband in Hallowell, to which he had traveled seeking land and work. The following year Ballard began her practice as a midwife. It was not until 1785 that she started her now famous diary, which chronicled daily…
Charles Best (1899-1978) was born to Canadian parents who were living in West Pembroke, at the time. [Frank A. Beard photo] He grew up there, graduated from the local high school, then attended the University of Toronto where he received his M.D. degree in 1925. In 1921 he, along with his colleague Frederick Banting, discovered…
The following health data and map are from the County Health Rankings web site, which states “The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is collaborating with the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute to develop these Rankings for each state’s counties.” See County Health Rankings 2013 for more information. The charts were created using data in the…
County health rankings for 2011, with a state map and data charts, are reported in an earlier article. The two complement each other. A more recent report of “How Maine Ranks” is available. Numbers under each category indicate the rank among Maine counties in 2013, with “1” being the healthiest ranking. See Maine’s rank in…
In 2005 twelve causes accounted for 80% of all deaths in the United States; thirteen accounted for 80% of all deaths in Maine. In both, heart disease and cancer alone caused nearly half of all deaths; stroke, lower respiratory diseases (such as bronchitis, emphysema, asthma), and accidents accounted for another 16 percent. In 1999, comparable…
December 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 1788 Birth date in Massachusetts of Governor (1827-1829) Enoch Lincoln of Paris, a Democratic-Republican whose body is mysteriously missing from its tomb…
About fifteen of every 100,000 Mainers commit suicide each year. Over 70% range in age from twenty-four through seventy-four. Suicides occur at a rate of about seven times that of murders. See other causes of death. The method of choice for males is a gun; for women it is poisoning. The good news is that…
2009 National Healthcare Quality Report: Ranking on Selected Measures The following ranking shows how well Maine is performing among all the States on 18 important measures of health care quality from the 2009 National Healthcare Quality Report. These measures were selected to represent a broad range of many common diseases. Lower “rank” numbers signify better…
Joshua Herrick (1793-1874) a U.S. Representative, was born in Beverly, Massachusetts, March 18, 1793, where he attended the common schools. Herrick moved to the District of Maine in 1811 and engaged in the lumber business. He served in the War of 1812, moved to Brunswick and became connected with the first cotton factory of Maine.…
June 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 1860 Benjamin White, a member of Congress, and of the Maine House of Representatives, and a teacher in Montville, dies in Montville. 1893 Birth…
[from “1918 Pandemic Influenza in Maine.” Maine Department of Health and Human Services.(edited for length and clarity)]* Saturday, November 2 The influenza epidemic, which has caused so much suffering in Portland, has passed its climax, but it has left behind weakness and desolation. Many families which have always been self-supporting have lost their providers. Others…
[from “1918 Pandemic Influenza in Maine.” Maine Department of Health and Human Services.(edited for length and clarity)]* Tuesday, October 1 On account of the epidemic of Spanish influenza and the fact that five students who arrived this morning were found to be afflicted with the disease, the opening of Colby College has been postponed for…
[from “1918 Pandemic Influenza in Maine.” Maine Department of Health and Human Services.(edited for length and clarity)]* Saturday, September 7 The first soldier at Camp Devens near Boston becomes ill with influenza. Just 35 miles northwest of Boston this camp, like so many other military camps, was hurriedly erected in the summer of 1917, just…
March 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 1790 Birth date of Benjamin White, Jr., who became the first Democratic Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives, in which…