1706

Onesimus: Public Health Pioneer Against Smallpox

Smallpox burial ground in Nobscot Scout Reservation
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Smallpox burial ground in Nobscot Scout Reservation Credit: Swampyank, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons (no changes made)

Smallpox is a significant threat in the area. Native populations lack immunity and suffer tremendously when European settlers bring the disease. In the early 1700s, Black slave Onesimus explains to his enslaver that Africans use the practice of variolation, a form of inoculation, to help people build immunity. They do so by dosing healthy people with infected pus from those who are ill. In a later resurgence of smallpox, Onesimus' owner and a local surgeon use this information to run a study and publish the results.
https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/onesimus/ https://www.massmoments.org/moment-details/dr-boylston-experiments-with-smallpox-inoculation.html