Onesimus Story: How an Enslaved Man Helped Boston Battle a Devastating Disease – NECN necn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from necn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Often overlooked in the history of that inoculation is an enslaved man who had been brought to Boston named Onesimus, according to experts.
Inoculated against smallpox in Africa, Onesimus testified that purposely infecting a person with a disease protected them against dying from the virus. It was vital in starting the first smallpox inoculations in Boston.
The episode is important for the history of public health and scientific innovation [and] important for the history of race relations, Harvard history of science professor David S. Jones said.
Yet Onesimus role in Boston s first inoculations was for years less well-known than the man who owned him, the influential preacher Cotton Mather, famous for his role in the Salem witch trials.