Pox and the Covenant: Mather, Franklin, and the Epidemic That Changed America's Destiny »

Tony Williams taught history and literature for ten years and has a master's in American History from Ohio State University. He is currently a full-time author who lives in Williamsburg, Virginia, with his wife and children.

On April 22, 1721, the HMS Seahorse arrived in Boston from the West Indies, carrying goods, cargo, and, unbeknownst to its crew, a deadly virus.

Publishers Weekly

Historian Williams (Hurricane of Independence) explores a fascinating aside to American medical history—how “a Puritan minister and one lone doctor... stood up to the medical establishment” by carrying out the first-ever American inoculation program during Boston’s 1721 smallpox epidemic. Here’s the brilliant Puritan minister Cotton Mather, also a member of the prestigious British Royal Society, and Zabdiel Boylston, the doctor whom Mather persuaded to test out the theories of inoculation. The results were stunning. Out of 242 persons inoculated against smallpox, only six died. Despite this success, the public—including the young and brash Ben Franklin—loudly disapproved. If this account of the raucous, turbulent times is often stilted, the compelling details of the momentous experiment and the epidemic’s devastating human toll speak for themselves. Williams argues that the campaign of Mather, the greatest preacher of his day, for inoculation illustrates the error of assuming that religion has always been “an impediment to the progress of modern science and reason.” But his better story is the one of Mather, a spiritual man and loving father who—despite being the target of an attempted assassin—wanted nothing more than to save his family and city.Map. (Apr.)

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction xiii

Prologue xix

1 A Killer Lurking 1

2 Walking Around Boston 11

3 Contagion 21

4 Ordinary and Extraordinary Concerns 33

5 At the Pulpit 51

6 A Consult of Physicians 59

7 Dr. Boylston Responds 69

8 Social Disharmony 89

9 The Brothers Franklin 97

10 For and Against Inoculation 107

11 "My Dying Children" 121

12 Death's Head 139

13 Life-Giving Fires 157

14 "The Afflicted Still Multiply" 165

15 "Cotton Mather, You Dog, Damn You!" 173

16 The Final Boston Inoculations 187

Conclusion 207

Bibliography 211

Endnotes 227

About the Author 259

Note to Reader 261

Index 263