天花是一种由来已久的祸害, known in the Old World and brought to the New by European explorers and settlers. 这是致命的, 但往往是周期性破坏的社区, 随后几年逐渐减弱，然后又卷土重来. 这是在1721年, with Boston’s last major 天花 outbreak 19 years in the past, 整整一代人在成年时都没有亲身经历过这种疾病的恐怖. Readers of the 17-24 April 1721 issue of the Boston 公报》 likely saw the announcement that “on Saturday last arrived here, His Majesty’s ship, 海马和其他几艘船 ... ” Little could they imagine that stowing away aboard the 海马 是天花, 那一年，它最终感染了近5800名波士顿人，夺走了844人的生命.

Not all were unprepared for the reappearance of the disease in Boston. 科顿·马瑟(1663-1728), the (in)famous Boston minister and an enthusiastic citizen scientist, 一直在阅读, 太, and when the epidemic began to gain a foothold in 1721, 他准备支持一项新的行动计划. 1716年，马瑟被一篇成功接种天花疫苗的报道所吸引 英国皇家学会哲学汇刊. 这, combined with the testimony of his enslaved person Onesimus, who told Mather of his own inoculation in West Africa, 促使马瑟公开呼吁在波士顿实施天花接种计划——这一建议得到了一位波士顿医生的积极关注——扎布迪尔·博伊尔斯顿(1679-1766)。.

波依斯顿, 像马瑟, 在早期的一次流行中受到天花的折磨，并同意从他6岁的儿子开始进行接种活天花的实验, 他36岁的奴隶杰克, 和杰克的儿子. 九天之后, with none of the three developing full-blown 天花, 博伊尔斯顿发誓要继续治疗其他病人. 很快, 然而, 他被命令去见镇当局，他们斥责了博伊尔斯顿，并“以严厉的威胁警告他不要再继续他的做法”.”马瑟, 太, 受到了公众的严厉批评, culminating in a bomb being thrown through the window of his house.

Resistance to the efforts of 波依斯顿 and Mather was swift and fierce. A trained physician named William Douglass led the charge among Boston’s physicians, 而公众则受到詹姆斯·富兰克林的影响, 的煽动者出版商 新英格兰报. 在她og体育平台波士顿天花疫情的文章里, Amalie Kass介绍了场景, which sounds like it could have been ripped from today’s headlines: “Unfounded rumors, 人身攻击, 公众对社区传统领袖的不尊重使得这场争议极其令人反感.尽管存在争议, 1721年爆发的时候, 大约有287人接种了疫苗, 其中只有6人死亡, contrasted with a 14 percent mortality rate among the general population. 随着每次爆发, more people chose to be inoculated and physicians continued to refine the process. The next major breakthrough arrived at the end of the eighteenth century.

接种或疫苗接种?

Al虽然 the two terms are used interchangeably today, 在19世纪初, 它们有不同的含义. 接种或变异(如Zabdiel 波依斯顿所使用的)意味着转移活性 天花 病毒从感染者传染给健康人. Vaccination (from the Latin vacca, or cow) referred to the process of transferring 牛痘 virus, a much milder but related virus, to cause immunity to the more deadly 天花. 疫苗接种的过程是Dr. Edward 詹纳 (1749-1823) of Berkeley, Gloucestershire, England. 詹纳, 谁在8岁时接种过天花疫苗, had a lifelong interest in science and nature and was apprenticed to a local physician, 外科医生丹尼尔·勒德洛, 14岁时. 在这段学徒生涯之后, 他搬到了伦敦，在那里他师从著名的英国医生约翰·亨特，学习外科和解剖学. He returned to Gloucestershire by 1773 and became a successful family physician. 当他在农村社区工作时, 他可能听过这样的传说:挤奶女工对天花有免疫力，因为她们接触过牛痘病毒，牛痘病毒在她们的牛同伴中很常见. 被各种可能性所吸引, by 1796, 他准备用这个假设做实验, injecting an 8 year old boy with matter from a dairymaid’s fresh 牛痘 lesion. 男孩康复后，詹纳给他接种了天花疫苗，但没有发展. 詹纳 continued his experiments with other patients and in 1798, published his An Inquiry Into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae, which was to prove influential to a daring physician in Cambridge, 质量.

新世纪，新方法

As the 天花 virus had arrived in Boston by sea, so 太 did its remedy. Dr. Benjamin 沃特豪斯 of Harvard University had received a copy of Edward 詹纳’s 1798 An Inquiry Into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae and having read other contemporary pro-vaccination tracts, 他决定一旦找到将牛痘病毒运送到马萨诸塞州的方法，就进行试验(这种牛传播的疾病在新英格兰还不为人所知)。. 虽然牛痘病毒是剧毒的，但它也容易因处理而受到损害. 沃特豪斯的英国同胞们认为，将病毒带到波士顿的最佳方法是将丝线浸泡在病毒中, 把线紧紧地密封在玻璃瓶里, and get them on the next ship from Bristol to Boston.

1800年7月4日，这艘船 芙特 from Bristol arrived in Boston Harbor, believed to be the ship that brought Dr. 在他的药瓶里灌满了牛痘. 就像他之前的扎巴迪尔·博伊尔斯顿, 沃特豪斯首先为自己的一个家庭成员接种了疫苗——他的儿子丹尼尔·奥利弗·沃特豪斯, 5岁. The disease progressed exactly as 詹纳 had predicted and within days, 沃特豪斯给他的小儿子和他同名的人接种了疫苗, 还有他年幼的女儿, 她的保姆, 和其他仆人. 所有人都很喜欢接种疫苗. 沃特豪斯, 虽然, 他需要确认牛痘已经刺激了对天花的免疫，所以把他的儿子丹尼尔送到布鲁克林的天花医院，通过接种和与病人密切接触来接触天花. Twelve days later, Daniel was released from the hospital free of the dreaded disease. Dr. Aspinwall, who operated the 天花 hospital, exclaimed, “这 is no deception. 作为人类的朋友，我为这一发现感到高兴，尽管这将使我失去一笔可观的年收入.”

很快，沃特豪斯就被来自各地的医生和江湖郎中要求提供牛痘样本来接种疫苗. 使用退化的牛痘物质(或者用真正的天花代替牛痘)的错误导致了马布尔黑德的爆发, 麻萨诸塞州, 在1800年秋天, 威胁疫苗接受进程. 在这种情况下, residents vaccinated by 沃特豪斯 remained healthy, while those vaccinated by other practitioners fell ill. 随着疫苗的成功变得越来越明显，沃特豪斯医生和詹纳医生之间的通信和病毒样本穿越了大西洋(尽管沃特豪斯在马萨诸塞州的医学同事经常持敌对态度), reminiscent of the establishment’s treatment of Mather and 波依斯顿 decades earlier).

希尔瓦纳斯·范希尔到底是谁?

沃特豪斯在疫苗接种方面的成功促使新英格兰的实践者之一是“医生”希尔瓦努斯·范希尔(1770-1846)。, 普利茅斯人, 康涅狄格, 上面画的是谁1810年左右的船舷. 范希尔并不是一个有医学学位的人, but an 1828 letter from 沃特豪斯 to “a friend in the city,证明了范希尔在接种疫苗方面的经验, 声称他“给更多的人接种了疫苗”, 到目前为止, 比美国任何一个人都好, 如果在世界上.他接着说，他很尊敬范希尔，因为他是“保存病毒或物质最可靠的方法”, 在最纯粹和最有效的状态下，再加上无私的精神, 诱使他给整个城镇接种疫苗, 为了什么, 最频繁, 难道不能称之为奖赏吗.”

事实上，人们可以找到. 范希尔在马萨诸塞州北安普顿的新英格兰报纸上为疫苗接种服务做广告.从纽约到R州的纽波特.I.在整个十八世纪及之后，他经常引用范希尔与沃特豪斯的og体育官网. And as 沃特豪斯 noted, Fansher was not always rewarded for his labors. 塞勒姆的日记引人入胜地记录了他在收取服务费方面遇到的一个挑战, 质量., clergyman William Bentley in the spring and summer of 1815. In 1816, Fansher was contracted by the town of Plymouth, 质量.，为约2800名居民接种疫苗. Despite the many lives Fansher no doubt saved, he died in poverty at Hartford, Conn.1846年6月6日. Dr. William Woodruff somewhat dismissively recalled his career for 沃特伯里镇和城市, 康涅狄格, from the Aboriginal Period to the Year Eighteen Hundred and Ninety-Five.

[Fansher]出身于一个挥霍无度的家庭，这种家庭在一两代人之后就会被“适者生存”的仁慈法则所淘汰.“……尽管在这种情况下看起来很奇怪，但接种疫苗的想法得到了奥巴马医生的支持. 作为先驱和专家，他很快就广为人知，伦敦皇家詹纳林学会授予他荣誉会员. 他那一天的报酬是丰厚的, 也许能保证他的独立, had it not been frittered away in useless and foolish inventions. … His appearance, as I remember him, was singular in the extreme. 丝绒小衣服, 一件杂色的背心，上面挂着六根表链和小饰品，供小家伙们消遣, 一件褪了色的蓝色斗篷——上面戴着一顶耷拉着的帽子，上面挂着一副绿色的护目镜——构成了这个身影. 难怪当他们被带到他面前时，他在这门手艺的年轻人中引起了轰动……