Beschreibung:

MATHER, Cotton (1663-1728)]. An account of the method and success of inoculating the small-pox, in Boston in New England. In a letter from a gentleman there, to his friend in London . London: J. Peele, 1722. 8 o (208 x 127 mm). Woodcut capitals and ornaments (blank last page pasted to a page bearing manuscript index to another work). Modern half brown morocco gilt, ENTIRELY UNCUT (boards slightly bowed). FIRST EDITION of Mather's account of "the first widespread test of immunization recorded in the western world." Mather, a prominent Boston cleric and member of the Royal Society, "a man of science as well as religion," learned of the preventative benefits of smallpox inoculation from African slaves in Boston and from accounts by Emmanuel Timonius and Giacomo Pylarini of its use in Turkey. "When the disease broke out in Boston in 1721, he persuaded his friend Dr. Zabdiel Boylston (1680-1766) to attempt the new method and kept careful statistics of comparative mortality rate...one of the first recorded quantitative analyses of a medical problem" (Norman). Mather's results, clearly demonstrating the advantage of inoculation, were communicated in a letter (dated September 7, 1721) to Jeremiah Dummer and published with a prefatory letter to Sir Hans Soane, president of the College of Physicians. Mather's pioneering attempts "led to the eventual adoption of inoculation in both Europe and America." Garrison-Morton 5414; Heirs of Hippocrates 718; Holmes Cotton Mather 3; Sabin 46213; Norman 1455.