John Maynard Woodworth (August 15, 1837 – March 14, 1879) was an American physician and member of the Woodworth political family. He served as the first Supervising-Surgeon General under president Ulysses S. Grant, then changed to Surgeon General of the United States Marine Hospital Service from 1871 to 1879. Early life and education Woodworth was born at Big Flats, Chemung County, New York. His family soon moved to Illinois, where Woodworth attended school in Warrenville. He studied pharmacy at the University of Chicago and worked as a pharmacist for a time. Woodworth was one of the organizers of the Chicago Academy of Science and in 1858 became curator of its museum. In this capacity, he made several trips west of the Mississippi River to collect natural history specimens. He was appointed naturalist by the University of Chicago in 1859 and asked to establish a museum of natural history. Woodworth also spent time working at the Smithsonian Institution over the next few years. He then decided to embark on medical studies, and graduated from the Chicago Medical College in 1862. Career Almost immediately upon graduating from medical school, Woodworth was appointed Assistant Surgeon in the Union Army. He was soon promoted to Surgeon and eventually became Medical Director of the Army of the Tennessee. Woodworth served under General William Tecumseh Sherman, and on "Sherman's March to the Sea" he was in charge of the ambulance train, bringing the sick and wounded to Savannah without the loss of a single man. After the war, Woodworth became a companion of the Pennsylvania Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States. Following the Civil War, Woodworth spent a year in Europe, receiving clinical instruction chiefly in the hospitals of Berlin and Vienna. In 1866, he became demonstrator in anatomy at the Chicago Medical College. He was also appointed Surgeon of the Soldier's home of Chicago and Sanitary Inspector of the Chicago Board of Health in that same year. Surgeon General In 1871, Woodworth was appointed the first Supervising Surgeon of the Marine Hospital Service. The Service had its origins in a 1798 Act of Congress "for the relief of sick and disabled seamen." The 1798 law created a fund to be used by the Federal Government of the United States to provide medical services to merchant seamen in American ports, which was expanded to include military and others who