By Ruby Lynn Holden, North Palm Beach Village Historian
A nineteenth century physician and scientist, Dr. Gorrie was an advocate of swamp draining to eliminate a major source of mosquitoes and the use of mosquito netting over beds. Also an inventor, he experimented with methods for cooling the sick rooms of fevered malaria patients.
He abandoned his medical practice to devote all his time and money to his experiments. On May 6, 1851, Gorrie was granted a patent for an ice-making machine. Although he struggled to improve on his invention, he failed. He died, humiliated and impoverished, in 1855.
Dr. Gorrie is honored in his home town of Apalachicola, a port city on the Gulf Coast, with Gorrie Square and the John Gorrie State Museum. In Jacksonville, an apartment building bears his name, and in Tampa an elementary school is named for him.
Looking Back 