- Zabdiel Boylston
Zabdiel Boylston (born 1676 or 1679 in
Brookline, Massachusetts ; died 1766) was amedical doctor . He apprenticed with his father, an English surgeon named Thomas Boylston. He also studied under the Boston physician Dr. Cutter, never attending a formal medical school (the first medical school in North America was not founded until 1765).Boylston is known for holding several "firsts" for an American-born physician: He performed the first surgical operation by an American physician, the first removal of gall bladder stones in 1710, and was the first to remove a breast tumor in 1718. [ cite journal | last = Toledo-Pereyra | first = Luis H. | title = Zabdiel Boylston. First American Surgeon of the English Colonies in North America | journal = Journal of Investigative Surgery | volume = 19 | issue = 1 | pages = 5–10 | publisher = Taylor & Francis | date =
2006-01-23 | url = http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/content/l7238w46l48288m1/| id = ISSN: 1521-0553 (Online) | accessdate = 2007-03-10 | doi = 10.1080/08941930500542413]He was a great uncle of President
John Adams . [ [http://cowhampshire.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2007/10/18/3209947.html Cow Hampshire :: New Hampshire Newspaper: "The Farmer's Cabinet" & the Boylston Family ] ]Inoculation
During a
smallpox outbreak in 1721 inBoston , he inoculated about 180 people [Cite web | title = Open Collections Program: Contagion, The Boston Smallpox Epidemic, 1721 | accessdate = 2008-08-27 | url = http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/contagion/smallpox.html ] by applyingpus from a smallpoxsore to a small wound on the subjects, a method said to have been previously used in Africa. Initially, he used the method on two slaves and his own son. This was the first introduction of inoculations to theUnited States . An African slave named Onesimus taught the idea toCotton Mather , the influential New England Puritan minister.His method was initially met by hostility and outright violence from some religious groups and most other physicians, and he was arrested for a short period of time for it (he was later released with the promise not to inoculate without government permission). In 1724, Boylston traveled to
London , where he published his results as "Historical Account of the Small-Pox Inoculated in New England", and became a fellow of theRoyal Society two years later. Afterward, he returned to Boston.References
External links
* [http://www.todayinsci.com/B/Boylston_Zabdiel/Boylston_Zabdiel.htm Today in Science History]
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