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This Week in History

March 7 — 13, 1679

Dr. Boylston Begins Smallpox Inoculation in America and Mentors Ben Franklin in London

Born on March 9, 1679, Dr. Zabdiel Boylston of Brookline, Mass. well deserves to be remembered for two very important missions that he accomplished during the 1720s. The first dealt with smallpox, the dreaded scourge that subjected its victims to a horrible death, and left its survivors scarred for life. The American colonies had been prey to wave after wave of the deadly disease, and on April 15, 1721 a ship from the Tortugas brought another outbreak to the town of Boston.

This outbreak, however, would be different. On June 6, the Rev. Cotton Mather, the leader of the republican networks in New England and a talented scientist, circulated an "Address to the Physicians of Boston," asking them to inoculate against smallpox. Mather had first heard of the practice of inoculation from a slave named Onesimus, who told him it was done by the Guramantese tribes in Africa. Then, in 1719, Mather read two papers published by the British Royal Society which described the method of smallpox inoculation used in Constantinople. Mather prepared an abstract of these papers for Boston's doctors which he added to his "Address."

When this plea did not produce any results, Mather wrote a letter on June 24 to Dr. Boylston, asking him to inoculate, saying that "If upon mature deliberation, you should think it advisable to be proceeded in, it may save many lives that we set a great value on." Boylston, who had survived the disease in 1702, deliberated only two days before he began inoculating members of his family and then expanded his efforts to others who wanted to undergo the procedure.

But this life-saving method was totally new to America and did involve a small element of risk. The political opposition to Cotton Mather and his republican networks was centered in a group of merchants who held monopolies from the British Crown on basic commodities such as grain. This group, which had been fleecing the public with high prices, now showed their "compassion" for the common man by coming out violently against the practice of inoculation.

These supporters of the degenerate Robert Walpole administration in Britain played on the population's fears and succeeded in organizing an anti-science mob to attack the homes of both Mather and Boylston. They also recruited "experts" to their cause, including William Douglass, a Scottish doctor who was to attack inoculation for the next 30 years, claiming that it helped to spread the disease.

Dr. Boylston was summoned three times by the selectmen of Boston, most of whom were under the thumb of the monopolists, to account for his actions. As the epidemic spread, more and more people requested to be inoculated. Cotton Mather had been working through his civic associations in order to encourage people to protect themselves against smallpox. By summer, the disease had reached epidemic proportions, eventually affecting half the population of Boston.

Finally, with the newspapers owned by the monopolists spewing out constant slanders, a grenade was thrown through Cotton Mather's bedroom window on Nov. 13. Mather's cousin was in the room recovering from inoculation, but fortunately the bomb's fuse was knocked off by hitting the window casement so there was no explosion.

To counter the fear-mongering pushed by the anti-science pamphleteers, Boylston and Mather collaborated on a series of eight letters and pamphlets, setting out the scientific basis of inoculation for the citizens of Boston and surrounding areas. Despite the pressure of constant harassment, Dr. Boylston kept careful records of his inoculations and his patients' reactions, tabulating the results. By the end of February 1722, he had inoculated 241 people, among whom, only six died, and of these at least four had contracted smallpox before they were inoculated.

While the epidemic still raged, Mather, with the aid of Dr. Boylston's records, sent a report of the inoculations to the British Royal Society, of which he was a member. Mather also wrote letters about Boylston's inoculations to other members of the Society, and his letter, titled "An Account of the Method and Success of Inoculating the Small-Pox, in Boston in New England," was published anonymously in London in 1722.

But the opposition of the anti-innoculators and their Walpolean backers had not abated. At the beginning of January 1722, their main propaganda organ, the New England Courant, claimed that Mather's support for inoculation must be the work of the Devil. On Jan. 15, Mather attended a meeting of Boston ministers and told them that his ability to do good for the citizens of New England was being severely restricted. From now on, he said, he had projects to do good in more distant places and among some of his own remnant of a flock, but as for New England in general, others would have to take the lead.

"I have done treating you with any more of my Proposals," said Mather. "If they should be never so good, yet if they be known to be mine, that is enough to bespeak a Blast upon them. Do YOU propose as many good Things as you please, and I will second them, and assist them and fall in with them, to the best of my Capacity." There was one Mather project that combined distant places and someone from his own flock, and it was about to begin.

Benjamin Franklin's father Josiah was one of the leaders of Mather's congregation, and members of the Franklin family had married relations of the Mathers. At this time, Benjamin was 16 years old and apprenticed to his older brother James, a printer. James had joined the anti-innoculation faction, whether from his own motives or as a Mather lookout is not known. In April of 1722, Benjamin Franklin began slipping anonymous articles, signed by "Silence Dogood," under the door of the New England Courant. The articles were at first much admired by the anti-science group, but as their author became famous in Boston, the tenor of the articles gradually changed, to become subtle attacks on the decay of New England's citizenry caused by the "Every man has his price" ideology of the Walpole ministry.

By late September of 1723, Franklin was ready to fulfill one of Mather's projects for distant places. He left Boston for Philadelphia, and no 17-year-old supposed runaway was ever more carefully monitored and helped along his way. Mather allies at every point made sure he reached his destination safely and, amazingly, two royal governors took a great interest in him. One of these, Gov. William Keith of Pennsylvania, another Mather ally and member of the trans-Atlantic republican network, proposed that Franklin should sail to England to obtain printing types, and then do the official printing for Pennsylvania!

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