149 



brought all their priestly influence to bear in its favor, 

 its adherents made slow progress. Nov. 20, 1721, there 

 was but one physician. Dr. Zabdiel Boylston,^^ known 

 to countenance and encourage the practice in Boston, 

 though Mather argued the lawfulness of it on scriptural 

 grounds, gravely urging: "Furthermore, I have made 

 some enquiry, whether there be many persons of a pro- 

 phane life and conversation that do approve and defend 

 inoculation, and I have been answered that they know 

 but of very few such. This is to me a weiglity consid- 

 eration. But on the other hand, though there are some 

 worthy persons that are not clear about it, nevertheless 

 it cannot be denied, but that the known children of the 

 wicked one are generally fierce enemies to inoculation."^^ 

 It was claimed in l^ehalf of inoculation, th;it it relieved 

 those who sul)mitted to it, for the rest of their lives, of 

 the habitual and universal dread of taking the disease in 

 the natural way. The unspeakable value of such ex- 

 emption is obvious. Moreover, it was also demon- 

 strated, that the disease thus artiticially produced in a 

 system previously skilfully prepared to receive it and 

 developed under scientific conditions, in every way the 

 most favorable, Avas not more dangerous nor afflictive 

 than many others. Instead of amounting to one in three, 

 four, or five of those affected, the number who died under 

 the new treatment was found not to exceed one in seven 

 hundred or a thousand, and was often stated nuich more 

 favorably, and thoughtful people congratulated them- 

 selves that at last "that disease, which, taken b}^ chance, 

 hath proved the Bain of Tens of Thousands, now comes 

 cloathed in gentleness, — all its Terribleness cast aside." 



21 Dr. Boylston's life was threatened and adverse legislation attempted. 



22 Collections Mass. Hist. Soc, 1st ser., Vol. IX, pp. 275-SO. 



