Background
Gorrie was born on October 3, 1803, on the Island of Nevis in the Leeward Islands of the West Indies, to Scottish family.
humanitarian inventor physician scientist
Gorrie was born on October 3, 1803, on the Island of Nevis in the Leeward Islands of the West Indies, to Scottish family.
John was educatied at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of the Western District of New York in Fairfield, New York, where he took a degree in medicine in 1827.
In the 1840's, while working at the U.S. Marine Hospital, Apalachicola, Gorrie noticed that the condition of patients suffering from yellow fever improved during cool weather. He developed a method of making ice to cool sickrooms. On May 6, 1851, he was granted a patent for a "new and useful machine for the artificial production of ice and general refrigeration," the first of its kind in the United States. Despite many attempts Gorrie failed, however, to market his idea. Humiliated by criticism, financially ruined, and his health broken, Gorrie died in seclusion on June 29, 1855.
Gorrie was not an overtly religious man and did not purchase a pew as was the custom of the day for the most devout and wealthy.
Gorrie married Caroline (Myrick) Beeman in May, 1838.
