Smallpox Inoculation (1 gen 1721 anni – 1 gen 1722 anni)

Descrizione:

While inoculation against smallpox was practiced in Africa and the East before 1721, Cotton Mather pioneered the practice in America. He started to inoculate people in Boston after one of his African servants told him about how he was inoculated against smallpox back home. It was during these two years of 1721-22 that the city of Boston was experiencing a devastating smallpox epidemic. Inoculation was vastly unpopular when Mather began to inoculate people like his own son against the disease. Many Bostonians feared that inoculation would lead to the outbreak of the bubonic plague even. Another inoculator, Boylston, was vehemently opposed when he continued to inoculate people despite clergymen and selectmen of Boston disapproving of the practice. There was a lot of fear from the general public, but Mather and others like him continued to inoculate, believing in the practice. A lot of its opposition not only came from public health fears but also religious ones, such as believing that it is a sin to deliberately make a healthy person ill. Eventually, the epidemic in Boston died down and so did the controversy.

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