1721 Boston smallpox outbreak
Disease outbreak in Boston, USA / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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In 1721, Boston experienced its worst outbreak of smallpox (also known as variola). 5,759 people out of around 10,600[5] in Boston were infected and 844 were recorded to have died between April 1721 and February 1722.[4][3] 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.