Identifier: historyofnorfolk00hurd (find matches)
Title: History of Norfolk County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men
Year: 1884 (1880s)
Authors: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed
Subjects: Norfolk County (Mass.) -- History Norfolk County (Mass.) -- Biography
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & Co.
Contributing Library: UMass Amherst Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: UMass Amherst Libraries

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n as practiced in Turkey. Insteadof allowing the disease to be taken in its natural way,the chances being that more than one-sixth of thepatients would die, the matter was forestalled by pre-paring the system for it by medical treatment, andthen scarifying the skin and applying the virus undera nutshell. Under inoculation it was seldom that apatient lost his life. The practice was not even be-gun in England when Cotton Mather suggested it toDr. Boylston for experiment. He introduced thesubject to the attention of other physicians in Bostonand vicinity, and was met with violent opposition ;the medical men, both in this country and in England,taking the ground that it was a crime, which cameunder the classification of poisoning, while the clergypreached against it, and wrote pamphlets, arguingthat the smallpox was a judgment from God for thesins of the people, and that to try to check its swaywould only ■^ j*^^^^^^^ hhn the more. Tliis street was named in honor of the Boylston family.
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inniiiMiinimnnininiiiniiniifliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiininiiiiiiifiiniiiiiiiiiliiiifiiiiillfiiH^^^ BROOKLINE. 861 A sermon was preached by a Rev. Mr. Massey, in1722, against The Dangerous and Sinful Practiceof Inoculation, from the text, • So Satan went forthfrom the presence of the Lord and smote Job withsore boils from the sole of his foot until his crown,from whence he argued that the Devil ivas the first■inoculator and Job his first jjntient. Some fifty yearsafterwards an epigram appeared iu the Monthly Mis-cellany on this sage opinion of the Rev. Mr. Massey,as follows: AVere told by one of the black robeThe Devil inoculated Joh :Suppose tis true, what he does tell,Pray neighbors, did not Joh do well? The inhabitants of Boston and vicinity became soexcited that men patroled the streets with halters insearch of the doctor, threatening to hang him to thenearest tree. The doctor was secreted fourteen daysin his own house in a hiding-place known only to hiswife. During this time the ho

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