[p.300] Nov
1721: An adjourned session was interrupted by the small-pox,
which, after an interval of twenty years, had broken out in Boston, and
occasioned the greatest alarm. In the published transactions of the
Royal Society, of which he was a member, Cotton Mather had been seen
some letters from Turkey, giving an account of the practice there of
communicating the small-pox by inoculation, thus enabling the patient
to prepare for the disorder, and to go through it more safely than when
taken in the natural way. With characteristic zeal and enthusiasm,
Mather took hold of this idea; and having applied in vain to the three
or four other medical practitioners of Boston, he at last prevailed on
Zabdiel Boylston to try the experiment. A native of the colony, a man
of skill and reputation in his profession, humane and courageous, Dr.
Boylston commenced upon his own son. The first trials were successful;
yet it required no little courage to go on. Inoculation was violently
opposed by the other practitioners, [p.301]
headed by Dr. Douglas, a pragmatical Scotchman. Several pamphlets
published on the subject prove, by the virulence of their style, the
excitement of the disputants. The new practice was denounced as an
infusion of malignity into the blood; a species of poisoning; an
interference with the prerogatives of Jehovah, whose right it was to
wound and to heal; an attempt to thwart God, who sent the small-pox as
a punishment for sins, and whose vengeance would thus be only provoked
the more. Many "sober, pious people" thought that, if any of Boylston's
patients should die, he ought to be treated as a murderer. An
exasperated mob paraded the streets with halters in their hands,
threatening to hang the inoculators. A lighted grenade, filled with
combustibles, was thrown into Cotton Mather's house, into the very sick
chamber of an inoculated patient.
Against superstition and prejudices thus inflamed by the members of a
learned profession, which ought to take the lead in natural science,
Cotton Mather made a noble stand, hardly to have been expected from one
so active thirty years before in the witchcraft delusion. His venerable
father, now very old, and the other ministers of Boston, sustained him;
but their united influence could hardly stem the popular torrent. The
selectmen took strong ground against inoculation: at the late session
of the General Court, a bill had passed the House to prohibit the
practice; but it was thrown out by the council. In the end the
inoculators completely triumphed. The very same month in which Boylston
and Mather commenced their experiments in Boston, inoculation was
introduced into England by the witty and accomplished Lady Mary Wortley
Montague, lately returned from a residence at Constantinople. The
success of this practice soon silenced all opposition; and it continued
in [p.302]
extensive use until superseded by the mere brilliant discovery of
Jenner. When Boylston visited England a few years after, he was
received with distinguished attention, and elected a member of the
Royal Society.
