Boston Smallpox 1721

About Boston Smallpox 1721

The 1721 Boston smallpox epidemic infected more than half of the approximately 10,600 residents and killed about 844. During this epidemic, Zabdiel Boylston, encouraged by Puritan minister Cotton Mather, performed the first variolation in the American colonies. Variolation involved inoculating healthy individuals with material from smallpox scabs, producing a milder infection that conferred immunity. Boylston variolated about 247 people, of whom roughly 2 percent died, compared with about 14 to 15 percent mortality from naturally acquired smallpox. The procedure was highly controversial, and Boylston and Mather faced fierce public hostility. Mather had learned about variolation from Onesimus, an enslaved man in his household, who described the practice common in West Africa. The debate over variolation foreshadowed later vaccine controversies. Benjamin Franklin later became a variolation advocate after his son died of smallpox in 1736. The 1721 epidemic and the variolation controversy established Boston as an early center of American medicine and public health.