36 EARLY QUARANTINE ARRANGEMENTS OF SALEM. 



pursuant to said Laws we hereby direct & require you, 

 with all convenient speed, to proceed with your vessel from 

 hence to Rainsford Island, where proper houses & accom- 

 modations are provided for the reception of your men in- 

 fected, or in danger thereof, & for cleansing them and the 

 vessel & goods on board ; and }^>u are to take care that 

 none of your men, nor yourself, come on shore here, as 

 you & they would avoid the penalties of the Laws in this 

 case provided. Given under our hands at Salem this 

 twenty fourth day of August, 1772. 



(signed) GEORGE DODGE, 



GEORGE WILLIAMS, 

 JOHN FELT, 

 JOHN GARDNER, 3 d , 

 TIM' Y PICKERING, jun r ." 



. [The above order was given the same day to Rich d . 

 Derby, jun 1 '., Esq r ., to be delivered to said Batton ; who 

 proceeded as therein was required.] 



We now approach the period at which the general treat- 

 ment of small pox by wholesale inoculation prevailed. 

 Salem had, by the first census, that of 1765, a popu- 

 lation of forty-four hundred and twenty-seven souls, five 

 hundred and nine houses, and nine hundred and twenty- 

 three families, and, by the next colonial census of 1786, 

 a population of fifty-three hundred and thirty-seven. 

 Marblehead was as large. October 19, 1773, was opened 

 by Elbridge Gerry, afterwards Vice-President of the 

 United States, and others, on Cat Island, in Salem Harbor, 

 near Marblehead, the first general hospital for inoculation 

 known to have existed in New England, and, it has been 

 also claimed, the first in the country. This establishment 

 accommodated classes of one hundred or more, who 

 remained under treatment four or five weeks. After a 

 few months of success, it was burnt by a mob. Meantime 



