1721 Boston Smallpox Outbreak
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1721 Boston Smallpox Outbreak
In 1721, Boston experienced its worst outbreak of smallpox (also known as variola). 5,759 people out of around 10,600 in Boston were infected and 844 were recorded to have died between April 1721 and February 1722. The outbreak motivated Puritan minister Cotton Mather and physician Zabdiel Boylston to variolate hundreds of Bostonians as part of the Thirteen Colonies' earliest experiment with public inoculation. Their efforts would inspire further research for immunizing people from smallpox, placing the Massachusetts Bay Colony at the epicenter of the Colonies' first inoculation debate and changing Western society's medical treatment of the disease. The outbreak also altered social and religious public discourse about disease, as Boston's newspapers published various pamphlets opposing and supporting the inoculation efforts. Smallpox in Boston On 22 April 1721 the British passenger ship arrived at Boston from Barbados, after one stop at Tortuga, with a crew of sailors who ...
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Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- most populous city in the country. The city boundaries encompass an area of about and a population of 675,647 as of 2020. It is the seat of Suffolk County (although the county government was disbanded on July 1, 1999). The city is the economic and cultural anchor of a substantially larger metropolitan area known as Greater Boston, a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) home to a census-estimated 4.8 million people in 2016 and ranking as the tenth-largest MSA in the country. A broader combined statistical area (CSA), generally corresponding to the commuting area and including Providence, Rhode Island, is home to approximately 8.2 million people, making it the sixth most populous in the United States. Boston is one of the oldest ...
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Onesimus (Bostonian)
Onesimus (late 1600s–1700s) 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 inoculation to prevent the disease, which laid the foundation for the development of vaccines.Kozlov, Max, Introducing Inoculation, 1721', The Scientist, January 1, 2021 After a smallpox outbreak began in Boston in 1721, Mather used this knowledge to advocate for inoculation in the population, a practice that eventually spread to other colonies. In a 2016 ''Boston'' magazine survey, Onesimus was declared one of the "Best Bostonians of All Time". Early life and enslavement Onesimus's name at birth and place of birth are not known with certainty. He was first documented as living in the colonies in 1706, having been brought to North Amer ...
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Edward Jenner
Edward Jenner, (17 May 1749 – 26 January 1823) was a British physician and scientist who pioneered the concept of vaccines, and created the smallpox vaccine, the world's first vaccine. The terms ''vaccine'' and ''vaccination'' are derived from ''Variolae vaccinae'' ('pustules of the cow'), the term devised by Jenner to denote cowpox. He used it in 1798 in the title of his ''Inquiry into the Variolae vaccinae known as the Cow Pox'', in which he described the protective effect of cowpox against smallpox. In the West, Jenner is often called "the father of immunology", and his work is said to have saved "more lives than any other man". In Jenner's time, smallpox killed around 10% of global population, with the number as high as 20% in towns and cities where infection spread more easily. In 1821, he was appointed physician to King George IV of the United Kingdom, George IV, and was also made mayor of Berkeley, Gloucestershire, Berkeley and justice of the peace. A member of the Ro ...
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Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (née Pierrepont; 15 May 168921 August 1762) was an English aristocrat, writer, and poet. Born in 1689, Lady Mary spent her early life in England. In 1712, Lady Mary married Edward Wortley Montagu, who later served as the British ambassador to the Sublime Porte. Lady Mary joined her husband in the Ottoman excursion, where she was to spend the next two years of her life. During her time there, Lady Mary wrote extensively on her experience as a woman in Ottoman Istanbul. After her return to England, Lady Mary devoted her attention to the upbringing of her family before dying of cancer in 1762. Lady Mary is today chiefly remembered for her letters, particularly her ''Turkish Embassy Letters'' describing her travels to the Ottoman Empire, as wife to the British ambassador to Turkey, which Billie Melman describes as "the very first example of a secular work by a woman about the Muslim Orient".Melman, Billie. ''Women's Orients: English Women and the Middle ...
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Benjamin Franklin 02
Benjamin ( he, ''Bīnyāmīn''; "Son of (the) right") blue letter bible: https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h3225/kjv/wlc/0-1/ H3225 - yāmîn - Strong's Hebrew Lexicon (kjv) was the last of the two sons of Jacob and Rachel (Jacob's thirteenth child and twelfth and youngest son) in Jewish, Christian and Islamic tradition. He was also the progenitor of the Israelite Tribe of Benjamin. Unlike Rachel's first son, Joseph, Benjamin was born in Canaan according to biblical narrative. In the Samaritan Pentateuch, Benjamin's name appears as "Binyamēm" (Samaritan Hebrew: , "son of days"). In the Quran, Benjamin is referred to as a righteous young child, who remained with Jacob when the older brothers plotted against Joseph. Later rabbinic traditions name him as one of four ancient Israelites who died without sin, the other three being Chileab, Jesse and Amram. Name The name is first mentioned in letters from King Sîn-kāšid of Uruk (1801–1771 BC), who called himself “King ...
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Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading intellectuals of his time, Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, a drafter and signer of the United States Declaration of Independence, and the first United States Postmaster General. As a scientist, he was a major figure in the American Enlightenment and the history of physics for his studies of electricity, and for charting and naming the current still known as the Gulf Stream. As an inventor, he is known for the lightning rod, bifocals, and the Franklin stove, among others. He founded many civic organizations, including the Library Company, Philadelphia's first fire department, and the University of Pennsylvania. Isaacson, 2004, p. Franklin earned the title of "The First American" for his early and indefa ...
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Boylston - An Historical Account Of The Small-pox Inoculated In New England (title)
Boylston may refer to the following communities: ;Canada * Boylston, Nova Scotia ;United States * Boylston, Massachusetts * Boylston, New York * Boylston, Wisconsin * Boylston Junction, Wisconsin It may also refer to: * Helen Dore Boylston, author of the popular "Sue Barton" nurse series * Zabdiel Boylston, American physician * Boylston Street in Boston, Massachusetts * Boylston (MBTA station) Boylston station (also signed as Boylston Street) is a light rail station on the MBTA Green Line in downtown Boston, Massachusetts, located on the southeast corner of Boston Common at the intersection of Boylston Street and Tremont Street. A s ...
, a subway station in Boston {{disambig, geo, surname ...
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Increase Mather
Increase Mather (; June 21, 1639 Old Style – August 23, 1723 Old Style) was a New England Puritan clergyman in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and president of Harvard College for twenty years (1681–1701). He was influential in the administration of the colony during a time that coincided with the notorious Salem witch trials. Biography Early life Mather was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts Bay Colony, on June 21, 1639, to the Rev. Richard Mather and Kathrine Holt Mather, following their participation in the Great Migration from England due to their nonconformity to the Church of England. The stated reason for his first name was "...the never-to-be-forgotten increase, of every sort, wherewith God favoured the country about the time of his nativity." The name " Increase" is a literal translation of the Hebrew "Yosëf" (Joseph). He was the youngest of six — The relevant excerpt can be seehere/ref> brothers, the others being Samuel, Nathaniel, Eleazar, Joseph, and Timothy. ...
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Boston City Council
The Boston City Council is the legislative branch of government for the city of Boston, Massachusetts. It is made up of 13 members: 9 district representatives and 4 at-large members. Councillors are elected to two-year terms and there is no limit on the number of terms an individual can serve. Boston uses a strong-mayor form of government in which the city council acts as a check against the power of the executive branch, the mayor. The Council is responsible for approving the city budget; monitoring, creating, and abolishing city agencies; making land use decisions; and approving, amending, or rejecting other legislative proposals. The leader of the City Council is the president and is elected each year by the Council. A majority of seven or more votes is necessary to elect a councillor as president. When the mayor of Boston is absent from the city, or vacates the office, the City Council president serves as acting mayor. The president leads Council meetings and appoints ...
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Quackery
Quackery, often synonymous with health fraud, is the promotion of fraudulent or ignorant medical practices. A quack is a "fraudulent or ignorant pretender to medical skill" or "a person who pretends, professionally or publicly, to have skill, knowledge, qualification or credentials they do not possess; a charlatan or snake oil salesman". The term ''quack'' is a clipped form of the archaic term ', from nl, kwakzalver a "hawker of salve". In the Middle Ages the term ''quack'' meant "shouting". The quacksalvers sold their wares on the market shouting in a loud voice. Common elements of general quackery include questionable diagnoses using questionable diagnostic tests, as well as untested or refuted treatments, especially for serious diseases such as cancer. Quackery is often described as "health fraud" with the salient characteristic of aggressive promotion. Definition Psychiatrist and author Stephen Barrett of Quackwatch defines quackery "as the promotion of unsubstanti ...
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Thomas Robie
Thomas Robie (March 20, 1689 – August 28, 1729) was a scientist and physician of the British colonies in America. His scientific interests were primarily in meteorology, astronomy, and medicine. Biography He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of William and Elizabeth Robie. After graduating from Harvard College with an A.B. in 1708, he taught at a school in Watertown, Massachusetts for about half a year before returning to Boston. Robie published the first of a series of annual almanacs in 1709, which would contain his meteorological observations and studies of the Solar System. He continued his studies at Harvard, and was awarded a Masters of Arts in 1711. In 1712 he was voted a "Library-Keeper" and scholar at Harvard during the period 1712 to 1713. After seriously considering a career as a Minister, he became a tutor of mathematics and natural philosophy at Harvard in 1913. Among the students he mentored were Thomas Clap, Charles Chauncy, and Isaac Greenwood. He wo ...
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