EARLY QUARANTINE ARRANGEMENTS OF SALEM. 37 



another similar establishment, like the first a private 

 enterprise, was opened in the Great Pasture near Castle 

 Hill in Salem, Dec. 9, 1773, with a class of 132 patients, 

 a second class of 137 following Jan. 7, 1774, and in- 

 oculating hospitals soon became a common and favorite 

 measure of prevention in this region. So virulent was 

 the type of the natural disease prevailing here that winter 

 that sixteen out of twenty-eight persons, suffering with it 

 at the pest-house, died. March 14, 1774, the inhabitants 

 of Salem voted to withdraw the license granted the pro- 

 prietors of this Hospital for inoculation because the Sut- 

 tonian or English method there practised had lost caste, 

 to reimburse them for their outlay and to assume the es- 

 tablishment as public property. I take from the Town 

 Records some account of the regulations under which it 

 was conducted. One of the Selectmen was Timothy 

 Pickering, afterwards Adjutant General of the Revolu- 

 tionary Army and Secretary of War under Washington. 

 Meeting of Inhabitants of Salem at the Court House 



O 



there, Sept. 29, 1773, at 4 o'clock in y e afternoon. 



" Voted, that a committee of nine persons be chosen to 

 assist the Selectmen, in stopping the spread of the small 

 pox and removing those who break out with it." 



"Voted, John Prince, Benjamin Pickman Esq., John 

 Warden, Richard Derby Jun r Esq. , Cap 1 Jon a Mason, Abra- 

 ham Watson, Capt. Will'm Pickman, David Mason, & 

 Richard Ward, be the above committee." 



" Voted, that the Selectmen be directed to take up and 

 use as many houses as they think necessary for removing 

 those persons who may be infected or break out with the 

 small pox." 



[In the autumn of this year an order was cried by 

 Thomas Heather, the town-crier, requiring that cats & dogs 

 be killed, as a precaution against the spread of small- 

 pox.] 



