On Small-Pox and Variolous Inoculation. %i 



o 



since 1730 it has gone through the town once in four 

 or five years, so that the greatest number of subjects 

 for inoculation must be under that age. 



«' The year 1752 (says Mr. Minot) was rendered 

 remarkable by the spreading and termination of the 

 smal!-pox in the towns of Boston and Charlestovvn*. 

 It is well known, that Doctor Boylston had the merit 

 of first introducing the practice of inoculation to the ca- 

 pital, fronf an account which he met with of its success 

 in Constantinople. The prejudice against this salu- 

 tary invention ran as high as superstition could well 

 carry it; but, like other groundless apprehensions, 

 It has been worn away by time, and left no other 

 effect behind it, than adding to the fame of those 

 whose characters it had maliciously attempted to de- 

 stroy. The result of the disease was, that in Boston 

 5,059 white persons, and 485 blacks, suffered them- 

 selves to be seized with it in its natural course, of 

 whom 452 whites, or upwards of one in eleven, and 

 62 blacks, nearly one eighth, died, 1,970 whites, 

 and 139 blacks, were inoculated. Of these only 24 

 whites, the proportion of about one in eighty-two, 

 and 7 blacks, not one in twenty, died. Even this 

 demonstration, however, did not extinguish the scru- 

 pulous opposition to inoculation, which may yet be 

 traced, though by fast declining evidence, even to the 

 present timef." 



* In Massachusetts. 



t Continuation of the History of the Province of Massachusetts 

 Bay, fi-om the year 1748. Vol. I. patyes 171 and 172. Boston : 

 1798, 



