{"id":256486,"date":"2021-05-21T22:27:29","date_gmt":"2021-05-21T19:27:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/old-records-shed-new-light-on-smallpox-outbreaks-in-1700s\/"},"modified":"2021-05-21T22:27:29","modified_gmt":"2021-05-21T19:27:29","slug":"old-records-shed-new-light-on-smallpox-outbreaks-in-1700s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/old-records-shed-new-light-on-smallpox-outbreaks-in-1700s\/","title":{"rendered":"#Old records shed new light on smallpox outbreaks in 1700s"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Old records shed new light on smallpox outbreaks in 1700s<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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BOSTON \u2014 A highly contagious disease originating far from America\u2019s shores triggers deadly outbreaks that spread rapidly, infecting the masses. Shots are available, but a divided public agonizes over getting jabbed.<\/p>\n

Sound familiar?<\/p>\n

Newly digitized records \u2014 including a minister\u2019s diary scanned and posted online by Boston\u2019s Congregational Library and Archives \u2014 are shedding fresh light on devastating outbreaks of smallpox that hit the city in the 1700s.<\/p>\n

And three centuries later, the parallels with the coronavirus pandemic are uncanny.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow little we\u2019ve changed,\u201d said CLA archivist Zachary Bodnar, who led the digitization effort, working closely with the New England Historic Genealogical Society.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that we\u2019re finding these similarities in the records of our past is a very interesting parallel,\u201d Bodnar said in an interview. \u201cSometimes the more we learn, the more we\u2019re still the same, I guess.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smallpox was eradicated, but not before it sickened and killed millions worldwide. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say the last natural outbreak of smallpox in the United States occurred in 1949. In 1980, the World Health Organization\u2019s decision-making arm declared it eradicated, and no cases of naturally occurring smallpox have been reported since.<\/p>\n

But in April 1721, after an English ship, the HMS Seahorse, brought it to Boston, it was a clear and present danger. By winter of 1722, it would infect more than half of the city\u2019s population of 11,000 and kill 850.<\/p>\n

Much earlier outbreaks, also imported from Europe, killed Native Americans indiscriminately in the 1600s. Now, digitized church records are helping to round out the picture of how the colonists coped when it was their turn to endure pestilence.<\/p>\n

The world\u2019s first proper vaccination didn\u2019t occur until the end of that century, when\u00a0an English country doctor named Edward Jenner inoculated an 8-year-old boy against smallpox<\/a>\u00a0in 1796.<\/p>\n

Before then, doctors used inoculation, or variolation as it was often called, introducing a trace amount of the smallpox virus into the skin. The procedure, or variations of it, had been practiced since ancient times in Asia. Jenner\u2019s pioneering of vaccination, using instead a less lethal strain of the virus that infected cows, was a huge scientific advance.<\/p>\n

\"A
A digitized copy of a page from a handwritten 18th century diary by the Rev. Ebenezer Storer, during a period of smallpox, in Boston, shows a March 1764 entry that includes a prayer Storer wrote after arranging to have his own children inoculated. <\/figcaption>
AP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Yet just as with COVID-19 vaccines in 2021, some took a skeptical view of smallpox inoculations in the 18th century, digitized documents show. To be sure, there was ample reason to worry: Early smallpox treatments, while effective in many who were inoculated, sickened or even killed others.<\/p>\n

The Rev. Cotton Mather, one of the era\u2019s most influential ministers, had actively promoted inoculation. In a sign of how resistant some colonists were to the new technology<\/a>,\u00a0someone tossed an explosive device through his window<\/a>\u00a0in November 1721.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, it didn\u2019t explode, but researchers at Harvard say this menacing message was attached: \u201cCotton Mather, you dog, damn you! I\u2019ll inoculate you with this; with a pox to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among the recently digitized Congregational Church records are handwritten diary entries scrawled by the Rev. Ebenezer Storer, a pastor in Cambridge, Massachusetts. On March 11, 1764, as smallpox once again raged through Boston, Storer penned a prayer in his journal after arranging to have his own children inoculated.<\/p>\n

The deeply devout Storer,\u00a0his diary shows<\/a>, had faith in science<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cBlessed be thy name for any discoveries that have been made to soften the severity of the distemper. Grant thy blessing on the means used,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

Three weeks later, Storer gave thanks to God \u201cfor his great mercy to me in recovering my dear children and the others in my family from the smallpox.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Bodnar, the archivist, it\u2019s a testament to the insights church records can contain.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re fascinating,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re essentially town records \u2014 they not only tell the story of the daily accounting of the church, but also the story of what people were doing at that time and what was going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A
A digitized copy of a page from a handwritten 18th century diary by the Rev. Ebenezer Storer, during a period of smallpox, in Boston, shows an April 1764 entry that includes a prayer Storer wrote weeks after arranging to have his own children inoculated. (American Ancestors & New England Historic Genealogical Society.<\/figcaption>
AP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#Old records shed new light on smallpox outbreaks in 1700s” BOSTON \u2014 A highly contagious disease originating far from America\u2019s shores triggers deadly outbreaks that spread rapidly, infecting the masses. Shots are available, but a divided public agonizes over getting jabbed. Sound familiar? Newly digitized records \u2014 including a minister\u2019s diary scanned and posted online…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":256487,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/05\/smallpox-vaccine-letter-009.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[106675,71464,1545,73461,83955],"class_list":["post-256486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-5-21-21","tag-cdc","tag-coronavirus","tag-diseases","tag-pandemics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}