Teesta Review: A
Journal of Poetry, Volume 8, Number 2. November 2025. ISSN: 2581-7094
First Inoculation Campaign in the West: Cotton Mather and Zabdiel Boylston
in Imitation of Decisive Moments in History by Stefan Zweig
--- Violetta Trofimova
The year 1716. Boston. New England. On a sunny July day, a Puritan priest Cotton Mather is writing a letter to the paleontologist John Woodward in England. He reflects on things that are far from theology — the measles epidemic three years ago and how to manage the sick better, and how to deal with smallpox. Two years ago, the journal Philosophical Transactions published an article by Dr. Timonius on variolation in Constantinople. Mather has never been to Turkey, he has not even traveled to England, but he has a Negro servant, Onesimus, who, while in Africa, was inoculated against smallpox. This case should be reported to Woodward. Mather does not know that another article on variolation is being prepared for publication in the Philosophical Transactions, this time in Latin by Dr. Jacobus Pylarinus. This issue will fall into the hands of Mather only a few years later. In the meantime, he wonders why variolation has not become widespread in England. When smallpox enters into Boston again, he will definitely raise the issue of inoculation with local doctors.
The year 1721. In April, a ship from Barbados brings smallpox to the
city. The authorities are trying to prevent the epidemic by quarantining the
sailors on Spectacle Island. But the infection is spreading. By the end of May,
smallpox is already in the city, and Cotton Mather understands — now or never!
He must use this chance to introduce variolation as a way to fight the epidemic
for the first time in the Western world, to carry out this experiment, never seen
before. A youthful dream comes up in his mind — to become a doctor, to save
human lives. Alas, this dream has remained only a dream. But he is a famous,
perhaps the most famous preacher in the city. He will go to Boston doctors, as
he decided five years ago. By the way, he needs to attach an abstract of two
articles on variolation from the Philosophical Transactions —
fortunately Dr. Douglass, a Scotsman, the only doctor in Boston with a medical
degree, loaned him the issue with Pylarinus’ work. Mather wasted no time — on
June 6, he was already sending out his Address to Boston doctors along
with the abstracts of the articles.
However, local doctors are in no hurry to convene a council on the issue
of smallpox inoculation. Only one of them responded to Mather’s call — Zabdiel
Boylston, a well-known surgeon of the city, the first in Boston who began to
perform operations to cut stones out. He read Mather’s Address and
abstract with interest and decided to start an experiment on his own family (he
himself had had smallpox in the last epidemic nineteen years ago). Mather and
Boylston start acting together. Both have a personal interest — Mather’s
daughter and son — teenagers — are terrified of dying of smallpox, Boylston’s
children of various age were not sick with this disease and therefore are under
threat. At the end of June, Boylston inoculates his six-year-old son and two
Black servants. His experiment is met with opposition from other doctors. The
Frenchman Dalhonde tells horrific stories of smallpox inoculation in Italy,
Spain and Flanders (apparently guided by unverified rumours). Dr. Douglass
refuses to show anyone the issue of the Philosophical Transactions with
Pylarinus’ report. On July 24, he himself publishes an article in Boston News-letter on the challenge, in which
he credits Mather as a priest with his “pious and charitable design” of doing
good, but attacks Boylston, calling him a quack, “cutter for the stone”, and
emphasizing his complete incompetence in variolation.
From now on, debates about a new method of combating smallpox will be
carried on the pages of Boston newspapers. Two groups are formed — supporters
of variolation, led by Cotton Mather and Zabdiel Boylston, and their opponents
— “anti-inoculators”, led by Douglass. A week after Douglass’s attack, the Boston
Gazette published a response from the inoculators — six Puritan priests,
who, in addition to Cotton Mather, included his father Increase Mather, pastors
Benjamin Coleman, Thomas Prince, John Webb and William Cooper. Coleman, priest
of the Third Puritan Church in Boston, was the direct author of the letter, but
it was printed in heavily edited form. In the original version, preserved in
manuscript, Coleman wondered why a “doctor of physick” or a surgeon cannot have
the same “pious and charitable design” of doing good as a doctor of divinity.
Such a bold thought did not make it into the newspaper version. However,
pastors-inoculators fervently defended Boylston from the attacks of
ill-wishers, emphasized that his ability to cut stones out is a blessing for
the city, and presented variolation as a godly deed.
City authorities take the anti-inoculators’ side and prohibit Boylston
from variolation. He stops inoculations for two weeks, but then resumes with
renewed vigor. Mather is afraid that he will not be able to inoculate his
children, although his son Samuel begs his father to get him variolated. Fueled
by the tales of Dalhonde, the inhabitants of the city rave, threatening
Boylston and those inoculated against smallpox. After consulting with his
father, Cotton Mather decides in August to expose his son to smallpox
inoculation in secret from everyone. Samuel has hard side effects and recovers
only at the beginning of September.
In August, the opponents of Mather and Boylston organize a club — the
Society of Physicians Anti-Inoculators. They also acquired their own media —
the New England Courant by James Franklin, in which Benjamin Franklin, a
very young future founder of the free and independent North American state,
also works. An apothecary John Checkley, an Anglican, becomes the leader of the
“anti-inoculators” along with Douglass. He has been quarelling with Mather for
two years now, and Mather's nephew from Roxbury, a young priest Thomas Walter,
has already responded to his attacks in the press. Checkley tried and tries to
prove that Cotton Mather is not a Fellow of the Royal Society of London. This
is his hobby-horse.
Mather does not remain in debt. Together with Boylston, he publishes an
abstract of the articles of Timonius and Pylarinus and his own reflections on
smallpox inoculation. He sends the work to England — in London they should know
the truth about what is happening in Boston, because his opponents, first of
all, Douglass, have already sent their friends more than one letter stating
their point of view. Mather and Boylston admit that they are still learning,
and they do not succeed in everything yet, they are faced with strong side
effects of variolation, but practice and further research will definitely
improve the method and correct their mistakes.
By September 7, Boylston has already inoculated 35 people, and so far he
has not had a single death due to the variolation. The situation is heating up.
Mather admits to himself that he is very tired; he does not have any strength
for studies. In his parish, the number of smallpox patients goes to the
hundreds, and every day the epidemic takes someone’s life. Although even
without the epidemic, Mather’s family has enough misfortunes — his daughter
Abigail dies in her fourth childbirth, and his newborn granddaughter dies too;
his daughter Hannah is seriously ill. He, too, has a fever, but three days
later he is fine again. City authorities ban those inoculated with smallpox to
enter Boston to prevent spreading the infection, but Mather, despite the ban,
invites Roxbury’s nephew Thomas Walter and his companions. In mid-November, the
tension reaches its climax: on the 14th, at three o’clock in the morning, a
lighted hand grenade flies into the window of Walter’s room. It is only by a
happy coincidence that it does not explode and does not hit Mather’s nephew in
the head. A note is attached to the grenade: “Cotton Mather, you dog, damn you,
I inoculate you with this, with a pox to you.”
The incident becomes known throughout the city thanks to a newspaper
article. Cotton Mather himself feels inner joy, anticipating martyrdom for
trying to save the lives of the dying people. Before, he knew about martyrdom
only by reading; now he knows what it really is to be a martyr. In any case, dying
at the hands of a killer is more interesting than dying of a fever. And for
Mather martyrdom for trying to save people from death is preferable to
martyrdom for beliefs.
Cotton Mather was not destined to become a martyr for smallpox
inoculation. He will die in his bed six years later, surrounded by his
children, relatives and friends. In the meantime, his father stands up for him
again and on November 20 publishes a pamphlet to prove that variolation is a
lawful practice. From the standpoint of common sense, Increase Mather refers to
the authority of serious scholars, to the Royal Society of London, to the
experience of variolation in the East and to the success of the experiment in
Boston — dozens of people were inoculated, and only one woman died from variolation.
Together with his father’s pamphlet, Cotton Mather also publishes his own work,
but anonymously. Cotton speaks about the “army of Africans”, who can confirm
the effectiveness of variolation, and, finally, returns to the
“anti-inoculators” the accusation that this procedure comes from the devil. At
the same time, pamphlets in defense of smallpox inoculation are being published
by Benjamin Coleman and William Cooper. Their writings will become famous in
Europe, and Cooper's work will even be translated into Dutch.
The struggle around variolation is flaring up with renewed vigor in
pamphlets and on the pages of newspapers. Perhaps the most important prejudices
of that time are coming up — racism and religious intolerance. Mather’s
opponents attack his maxim about the “army of Africans”, call Africans false
liars, creatures not worth trusting. He is accused of justifying the policy of
Muslims and of defending the truth of Islam, which, according to Mather’s
opponents, is imposed by fire and sword. Sometimes it all passes not without
humour.
In December, a colourful character enters the battle — tobacco seller
John Williams, nicknamed Mundungus, an illiterate scribbler. He was considered
the creator of a special “Mundungian” language, which was distorted English.
However, Williams wrote a pamphlet against smallpox inoculation in regular
English. He undertook to prove that variolation is contrary to the laws of
nature and comes from the devil. With the help of simple logical manipulations
in the spirit of Hamlet's Gravedigger, Williams successfully achieves his goal.
Mundungus’s pamphlet does not go unanswered. Moreover, in December 1721
and January 1722, Cotton Mather's sons, Increase and Samuel, stand up for him.
While a young student Samuel publishes an article in the newspaper, Increase,
who never liked to write, apparently applies physical force to the offender,
and this confuses his father. At the same time, Zabdiel Boylston continues the
inoculation campaign. He has already expanded it to the towns of Charleston and
Roxbury. Among the inoculated is the future first Harvard Professor of
Mathematics Isaac Greenwood. He is only eighteen so far, he is attending
university, and he, too, supports Boylston and the Mathers.
By the New Year, the indefatigable Williams has released a new pamphlet
against smallpox inoculation. He recalls the darkest page in Cotton Mather’s
biography — his support for the Salem Witch Trials in 1692. Mather did not
publicly repent of his actions during this famous trial; only in his diary did
he regret that he did not stop the proceedings of the judges and did not warn
them against the imposition of death sentences. Cotton Mather will not wash off
this stain even after his death — to this day his name is inextricably linked
with the tragic events in Salem, although he was then neither a prosecutor nor
a judge. Williams, speaking of the events of thirty years ago, attributes the
witchcraft accusations of the innocent to the wiles of the devil, who deluded
the prosecutors. Since among the supporters of variolation there are those who
supported the witch hunt in Salem, smallpox inoculation is a diabolical
obsession. This idea is picked up by Douglass, who kept a long silence. He
accuses Puritan priests of persecuting Quakers in the middle of the 17th
century, of a witch hunt in 1691 (!) (he was apparently not very good at
chronology) and of initiating smallpox inoculation in 1721.
Isaac Greenwood, who has successfully undergone this procedure, stands
up to defend smallpox inoculation. Hiding under the pseudonym “Academicus”, he
wittily ridicules Williams and Douglass and places the “Mundungian Vocabulary”
as an appendix to his pamphlet. Greenwood dedicates his pamphlet to Zabdiel
Boylston and speaks of his “heroic courage” and great merits in the case of
variolation.
While Isaac Greenwood saw the Boston inoculation campaign as a product
of Boylston’s efforts, the anonymous author of The Vindication of the
Ministers, which appeared in early 1722, attributed it exclusively to
Cotton Mather. He called Mather “an eminent person, a learned man, a Fellow of
the Royal Society of London” and in every possible way defended him from the
attacks of ill-wishers.
The year 1722. In January and February, Boylston continues to inoculate
everyone who wants against smallpox, and Cotton Mather — to publish essays on
variolation. Boston authorities are still on the side of their opponents, they
try to stop the campaign as much as possible, but support comes from England.
There, in parallel with the experiment in Boston, Doctor Maitland, inspired by
the wife of the British ambassador to Constantinople, a famous writer Lady Mary
Wortley Montague, has already inoculated her children against smallpox and is
now inoculating representatives of the aristocracy and even members of the
royal family. Boston newspapers report the success of variolation in England
and that the procedure is becoming fashionable. American “anti-inoculators” are
at a loss, they can only appeal to the opinion of some divines of the Anglican
Church, who openly call variolation a devilish invention, and those who
practice it — atheists and blasphemers.
Zabdiel Boylston did not practice variolation from February to May. He
inoculates six people in May. By the order of the city authorities, the entire group
is sent on quarantine to Spectacle Island. All of them have recovered.
Thus concludes Boston experiment on variolation. In total, in 1721–22,
about 300 people were inoculated (the exact figure is 287), six of them died.
Among the inoculated were young and old, women and men, White people, Negroes
and Indians. Half the city was ill with smallpox — with a population of over
ten thousand a number of cases reached 5759, and 844 people died, that is,
about 15% versus 2% during the experiment on smallpox inoculation. The numbers
speak for themselves — the experiment was successful.
The year 1723. Cotton Mather is finally officially elected to the Royal
Society of London, and his opponents no longer have a reason to call him an
impostor.
At the end of 1724 Zabdiel Boylston left for England. There he published
a detailed account of smallpox inoculation in Boston, enjoyed the patronage of
the royal family, and in 1726, like Mather, became a Fellow of the Royal
Society of London.
In 1730, when the smallpox epidemic hits New England again, even William
Douglass is forced to admit that inoculation is a “considerable improvement” in
the fight against this disease. True, he again attacks Boylston, considering
him a quack, and disparagingly speaks of the already late Cotton Mather as a
credulous and whimsical priest, overwhelmed by a thirst for fame as an innovator.
Douglass’s colleagues took up Boylston's initiative and actively engaged in
variolation.
Unlike the vindictive Douglass, Benjamin Franklin held in high respect
both Boylston and Cotton Mather. He knew both of them personally. At the
beginning of 1724 he visited Mather and recalled this meeting in his last years
in a letter to Samuel Mather, with whom he corresponded all his life. Franklin
was particularly grateful to Zabdiel Boylston for the financial and moral
support he gave him in London. In the 1730s, smallpox took the life of Benjamin
Franklin’s son, and in the late 1740s, he inoculated his daughter against
smallpox and wrote an essay in defense of variolation.
In 1980, in the Final Report of the Global Commission for the
Certification of Smallpox Eradication, the name of the ambiguous and
controversial Cotton Mather (a non-medical person, as they called him there)
stood next to the name of the respectable Lady Mary Wortley Montague among the
pioneers of smallpox control by variolation. Not a word was said about Doctor
Zabdiel Boylston, as well as about Maitland. Meanwhile, the epitaph on
Boylston’s grave as early as 1766 stated that he was the first to introduce the
practice of smallpox inoculation into America. Cotton Mather and Zabdiel
Boylston share the pioneering fame in the fight against smallpox by
variolation. None of them could have done anything alone: one submitted an idea
and defended it orally and in print, the other successfully applied this idea
in practice, paving the way for Edward Jenner and his invention of the first
vaccine based on cowpox, which is harmless to humans.
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Bio:
Dr. Violetta Trofimova has her Ph.D. in
English literature from St. Petersburg State University, Russia. She has published a hundred articles in Russian, English and French, and two
monographs in Russian on women writers. She has published a volume of short
stories as well as three novels in Russian.
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