The precise truth as to the extent of the Boston epidemic is far from easy to ascertain: it was the temptation of the inoculators to magnify the numbers of the afflicted and of their antagonists to minimise. Thus we read--
At a meeting by publick authority in the Town House of Boston, before His Majesty’s Justices of the Peace and the Select Men; the practitioners of physic and surgery being called before them, concerning Inoculation, agreed to the following conclusion:--
A Resolve upon a debate held by the physicians of Boston concerning inoculating the Smallpox on the 21st day of July, 1721.
It appears by numerous instances, that it has proved the death of many persons soon after the operation, and brought distempers upon many others which have in the end proved deadly to ’em.
That the natural tendency of infusing such malignant filth in the mass of blood is to corrupt and putrefy it, and if there be not a sufficient discharge of that malignity by the place of incision, or elsewhere, it lays a foundation for many dangerous diseases.
That the operation tends to spread and continue the infection in a place longer than it might otherwise be.
That the continuing the operation among us is likely to prove of most dangerous consequence.
The number of persons, men, women, and children, that have died of smallpox at Boston from the middle of April last (being brought here then by the Saltertuda’s Fleet) to the 23rd of this instant July (being the hottest and worst season of the year to have any distemper in) are, _viz._--2 men, strangers, 3 men, 3 young men, 2 women, 4 children, 1 negro man, and 1 Indian woman, 17 in all; and of those that have had it, some are well recovered, and others in a hopeful and fair way of recovery.
Dr. Fleuart of Boston wrote to London that of 70 inoculated, 14 or 15 had died; and that at Roxbury, where there was no smallpox, 5 inoculated had died.[5]
Conflicting as are the testimonies, we must allow much to the natural aversion from an operation, not only novel, but disgusting; but taking the best that could be claimed for the new practice by an enthusiastic advocate, the benefit was trifling when seriously scrutinised. Dr. Boylston visited London after the Boston epidemic, and finding inoculation in high vogue he published an _Account of the Smallpox inoculated in New England_.[6] George I. and the Prince and Princess of Wales had taken Inoculation under their august patronage, and Boylston with loyal fervour burst forth--