1721 Boston smallpox outbreak

1721 Boston smallpox epidemic
DiseaseSmallpox
Virus strainVariola major
LocationBoston, Massachusetts
Index caseBritish sailor disembarking HMS Seahorse [1][2]
Dates22 April 1721 - 22 February 1722
Confirmed cases5,759 [3]
Deaths
844 [4][3]

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.

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference farmer was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Coss was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference thatcher was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ a b Kelly, M.D., Howard; Burrage, M.D., Walter (1920). American Medical Biographies. The Norman, Remington Company. p. 134. Retrieved 15 June 2019.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference buhr was invoked but never defined (see the help page).