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Onesimus, an African man enslaved in Boston, told the Puritan minister Cotton Mather how people in his homeland guarded against smallpox: they deliberately gave healthy people a small, controlled infection. During Boston's 1721 epidemic, Mather championed the method and the physician Zabdiel Boylston put it into practice.

Historical account — Royal Society; U.S. National Park Service

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The method, called variolation, put material from a smallpox sore into a small cut in a healthy person. It usually caused a milder illness and lasting immunity, though it could still kill; vaccination, which uses a different and safer virus, came later, in 1796. Mather had learned of it from Onesimus around 1716. When the epidemic struck in 1721, infecting about half of Boston's 11,000 people, Boylston first inoculated his six-year-old son and two enslaved men. The backlash was fierce: someone threw a lit explosive through Mather's window. Onesimus had already gained partial freedom in 1716 by paying for another enslaved man to take his place; little else is known of his life.

Türkçe oku
Boston'da köle olarak yaşayan Afrikalı Onesimus, Püriten vaiz Cotton Mather'a memleketinde insanların çiçek hastalığından nasıl korunduğunu anlattı: Sağlıklı kişilere hastalık bilerek ve az miktarda bulaştırılıyordu. Mather, 1721'deki Boston salgınında bu yöntemin savunuculuğunu yaptı; hekim Zabdiel Boylston da onu uygulamaya koydu.

Variolasyon adı verilen bu yöntemde, çiçek yarasından alınan madde sağlıklı bir kişinin derisinde açılan küçük bir kesiğe sürülürdü. Genellikle daha hafif bir hastalığa ve kalıcı bağışıklığa yol açardı, ama yine de öldürebiliyordu. Farklı ve daha güvenli bir virüs kullanan aşı ise 1796'da geldi. Mather yöntemi 1716 dolaylarında Onesimus'tan öğrenmişti. 1721'de salgın Boston'un yaklaşık 11.000 kişilik nüfusunun yarısına bulaşınca Boylston ilk olarak altı yaşındaki oğluna ve köle olarak tuttuğu iki kişiye variolasyon uyguladı. Tepki sert oldu: Biri Mather'ın penceresinden içeri yanan bir patlayıcı attı. Onesimus ise daha 1716'da, yerine başka bir köle alınması için para ödeyerek kısmi özgürlüğünü kazanmıştı; hayatının geri kalanı hakkında çok az şey biliniyor.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Onesimus (Bostonian)
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