Smallpox Inoculations are first administered in Boston.

At the urging of Cotton Mather, Dr. Zabdiel Boylston inoculates his son Thomas, 6, his slave Jack, 36, and Jack’s son, 2 1/2. The action is opposed by Dr. William Douglass and publisher James Franklin, whose newspaper calls it “A practice of the Greek old women, its practitioners no better than quacks; the whole invention an epidemic distemper of the mind.” Mather’s home is attacked, and Boylston is nearly lynched by opponents. Despite being forbidden to proceed by Town Meeting, Boylston performs the first large-scale and successful use of inoculation to combat smallpox in North America. While nearly 15% of the 5,889 residents infected die, only six of the 287 of those inoculated by Boylston succumb to the disease.