Onesimus (late 1600s–1700s[1]) was an African (likely Akan) man who was instrumental in the mitigation of smallpox in Boston, Massachusetts.
He introduced his enslaver, Puritan clergyman Cotton Mather, to the principle and procedure of the variolation method of inoculation, which prevented smallpox and laid the foundation for the development of vaccines.[2]
After a smallpox outbreak began in Boston in 1721, Mather proliferated Onesimus's knowledge to advocate for inoculation in the population. This practice eventually spread to other colonies.
Recognition for Onesimus's contributions to medical science came in 2016, when the Boston magazine declared him among the 100 Best Bostonians of All Time.[1] Historian Ted Widmer of CUNY's Macaulay Honors College noted that "Onesimus reversed many of [the colonists'] traditional racial assumptions... [h]e had a lot more knowledge medically than most of the Europeans in Boston at that time."[2][1]
best was invoked but never defined (see the help page).