Cotton Mather was a Puritan clergyman and author in colonial New England, who wrote extensively on theological, historical, and scientific subjects. After being educated at Harvard College, he joined his father Increase as minister of the Congregationalist Old North Meeting House in Boston, Massachusetts, where he preached for the rest of his life. He has been referred to as the "first American Evangelical".
1721 (MDCCXXI) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar, the 1721st year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 721st year of the 2nd millennium, the 21st year of the 18th century, and the 2nd year of the 1720s decade. As of the start of 1721, the Gregorian calendar was 11 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.
Cowpox is an infectious disease caused by the cowpox virus (CPXV). It presents with large blisters in the skin, a fever and swollen glands, historically typically following contact with an infected cow, though in the last several decades more often from infected cats. The hands and face are most frequently affected and the spots are generally very painful.
The smallpox vaccine is the first vaccine to have been developed against a contagious disease. In 1796, British physician Edward Jenner demonstrated that an infection with the relatively mild cowpox virus conferred immunity against the deadly smallpox virus. Cowpox served as a natural vaccine until the modern smallpox vaccine emerged in the 20th century. From 1958 to 1977, the World Health Organization (WHO) conducted a global vaccination campaign that eradicated smallpox, making it the only human disease to be eradicated. Although routine smallpox vaccination is no longer performed on the general public, the vaccine is still being produced to guard against bioterrorism, biological warfare, and mpox.
The New World of the Western Hemisphere was devastated by the 1775–1782 North American smallpox epidemic. Estimates based on remnant settlements say at least 130,000 people were estimated to have died in the epidemic that started in 1775.
Zabdiel Boylston, FRS was a physician in the Boston area. As the first medical school in North America was not founded until 1765, Boylston apprenticed with his father, an English-born surgeon named Thomas Boylston, and studied under the Boston physician Dr. Cutler. Boylston is known for holding several "firsts" for an American-born physician: he performed the first surgical operation by an American physician, the first removal of gall bladder stones in 1710, and the first removal of a breast tumor in 1718. He was also the first physician to perform smallpox inoculations in North America.
Artificial induction of immunity is immunization achieved by human efforts in preventive healthcare, as opposed to natural immunity as produced by organisms' immune systems. It makes people immune to specific diseases by means other than waiting for them to catch the disease. The purpose is to reduce the risk of death and suffering, that is, the disease burden, even when eradication of the disease is not possible. Vaccination is the chief type of such immunization, greatly reducing the burden of vaccine-preventable diseases.
James Jurin FRS FRCP was an English scientist and physician, particularly remembered for his early work in capillary action and in the epidemiology of smallpox vaccination. He was a staunch proponent of the work of Sir Isaac Newton and often used his gift for satire in Newton's defence.
The New-England Courant, one of the first American newspapers, was founded in Boston in 1721, by James Franklin. It was a weekly newspaper and the third to appear in Boston. Unlike other newspapers, it offered a more critical account about the British colonial government and other royal figures of authority. The newspaper published critical commentary about smallpox inoculation which fueled the controversy during the smallpox epidemic in Boston. Ultimately it was suppressed in 1726 by British colonial authorities for printing what they considered seditious articles. Franklin took on his brother, Benjamin Franklin, as an apprentice and at one point was compelled to sign over publication of the Courant to him to avert further prosecution. Benjamin submitted anonymous editorials to the Courant, which resulted in James' imprisonment after he began publishing them. This sort of Governmental censorship of early colonial newspapers is what largely fostered the American ideal of Freedom of Speech in the press. The New England Courant is widely noted among historians as being the first newspaper to publish Benjamin's writings.
Disease in colonial America that afflicted the early immigrant settlers was a dangerous threat to life. Some of the diseases were new and treatments were ineffective. Malaria was deadly to many new arrivals, especially in the Southern colonies. Of newly arrived able-bodied young men, over one-fourth of the Anglican missionaries died within five years of their arrival in the Carolinas. Mortality was high for infants and small children, especially for diphtheria, smallpox, yellow fever, and malaria. Most sick people turned to local healers, and used folk remedies. Others relied upon the minister-physicians, barber-surgeons, apothecaries, midwives, and ministers; a few used colonial physicians trained either in Britain, or an apprenticeship in the colonies. One common treatment was blood letting. The method was crude due to a lack of knowledge about infection and disease among medical practitioners. There was little government control, regulation of medical care, or attention to public health. By the 18th century, Colonial physicians, following the models in England and Scotland, introduced modern medicine to the cities in the 18th century, and made some advances in vaccination, pathology, anatomy and pharmacology.
The history of smallpox extends into pre-history. Genetic evidence suggests that the smallpox virus emerged 3,000 to 4,000 years ago. Prior to that, similar ancestral viruses circulated, but possibly only in other mammals, and possibly with different symptoms. Only a few written reports dating from about 500 AD to 1000 AD are considered reliable historical descriptions of smallpox, so understanding of the disease prior to that has relied on genetics and archaeology. However, during the 2nd millennium AD, especially starting in the 16th century, reliable written reports become more common. The earliest physical evidence of smallpox is found in the Egyptian mummies of people who died some 3,000 years ago. Smallpox has had a major impact on world history, not least because indigenous populations of regions where smallpox was non-native, such as the Americas and Australia, were rapidly and greatly reduced by smallpox during periods of initial foreign contact, which helped pave the way for conquest and colonization. During the 18th century the disease killed an estimated 400,000 Europeans each year, including five reigning monarchs, and was responsible for a third of all blindness. Between 20 and 60% of all those infected—and over 80% of infected children—died from the disease.
John Williams was a New England Puritan minister who was the noted pastor of Deerfield from 1688 to his death. He and most of his family were taken captive in the Raid on Deerfield in 1704 during Queen Anne's War. He was held by the French in Montreal for more than two years, who wanted a high-ranking French pirate in exchange. After being released in late 1706, Williams became even more notable for The Redeemed Captive (1707), his account of his captivity. It became a well-known work in the genre of captivity narratives.
William Douglass was a physician in 18th-century Boston, Massachusetts, who wrote pamphlets on medicine, economics and politics that were often polemical. He was a central figure, along with Cotton Mather during the controversy surrounding the 1721 smallpox epidemic in Boston.
Thomas Frewen, M.D. (1704–1791), was an English physician.
Variolation was the method of inoculation first used to immunize individuals against smallpox (Variola) with material taken from a patient or a recently variolated individual, in the hope that a mild, but protective, infection would result. Only 1–2% of those variolated died from the intentional infection compared to 30% who contracted smallpox naturally. Variolation is no longer used today. It was replaced by the smallpox vaccine, a safer alternative. This in turn led to the development of the many vaccines now available against other diseases.
William Woodville was an English physician and botanist. Convinced by the work of Edward Jenner, he was among the first to promote vaccination. His four volume book on medical botany published between 1790 and 1794 with 300 illustrations of medicinal plants by James Sowerby was an important reference work for physicians in the nineteenth century with a second edition in 1810 followed by a revision in 1832 by William Jackson Hooker and George Spratt.
The Massachusetts smallpox epidemic or colonial epidemic was a smallpox outbreak that hit Massachusetts in 1633. Smallpox outbreaks were not confined to 1633 however, and occurred nearly every ten years. Smallpox was caused by two different types of variola viruses: variola major and variola minor. The disease was hypothesized to be transmitted due to an increase in the immigration of European settlers to the region who brought Old World smallpox aboard their ships.
Inoculation is the act of implanting a pathogen or other microbe or virus into a person or other organism. It is a method of artificially inducing immunity against various infectious diseases. The term "inoculation" is also used more generally to refer to intentionally depositing microbes into any growth medium, as into a Petri dish used to culture the microbe, or into food ingredients for making cultured foods such as yoghurt and fermented beverages such as beer and wine. This article is primarily about the use of inoculation for producing immunity against infection. Inoculation has been used to eradicate smallpox and to markedly reduce other infectious diseases such as polio. Although the terms "inoculation", "vaccination", and "immunization" are often used interchangeably, there are important differences. Inoculation is the act of implanting a pathogen or microbe into a person or other recipient; vaccination is the act of implanting or giving someone a vaccine specifically; and immunization is the development of disease resistance that results from the immune system's response to a vaccine or natural infection.
Onesimus was an African man who was instrumental in the mitigation of the impact of a smallpox outbreak in Boston, Massachusetts. His birth name is unknown. He was enslaved and, in 1706, was given to the New England Puritan minister Cotton Mather, who renamed him. Onesimus introduced Mather to the principle and procedure of the variolation method of inoculation to prevent the disease, which laid the foundation for the development of vaccines. After a smallpox outbreak began in Boston in 1721, Mather used this knowledge to advocate for inoculation in the population. This practice eventually spread to other colonies. In a 2016 Boston magazine survey, Onesimus was declared one of the "Best Bostonians of All Time".
The Norfolk Anti-Inoculation Riot on June 27, 1768 was part of a series of riots across the English Colonies in the New World surrounding inoculation against smallpox. Many inhabitants of the colonies were against this relatively new approach to build immunity against smallpox. Inhabitants were afraid that inoculation would infect and kill uninfected communities, but they also objected for political reasons. The riot on June 27, 1768 in Norfolk, Virginia consisted of an anti-inoculation mob invading a plantation where inoculated families resided, ending in the mob driving the families into the local pest house.
