(Note: The following is part of a series of columns looking at the establishment and growth of doctors, hospitals and the health industry in Georgia and Bulloch County.) After the Marine Hospital Service Act was signed into law by President John Adams in 1798, Savannah opened the Forest City Marine Hospital in 1804 for both sick seamen and the city’s poor. The hospital, which was operated by the Marine Hospital Service, was funded by a tax of 20 cents taken from each seaman’s monthly earnings and placed in the Marine Hospital Fund. After being reincorporated in 1808 as the Savannah Poor House and Hospital Society, the hospital moved to new quarters on Gaston Street in 1819.