Who was known for his promotion of inoculation for disease prevention and owned the slave Onesimus?
Onesimus (Boston slave) Onesimus (late 1600s–1700s) was an African-born man held as a slave by Puritan minister Cotton Mather, who helped mitigate the impact of a smallpox outbreak in Boston by introducing Mather to the principle of inoculation. In a 2016 "Boston Magazine" survey, he was declared one of the "Best Bostonians of All Time".
Inoculation The terms inoculation, "vaccination", and "immunization" are often used synonymously to refer to artificial induction of immunity against various infectious diseases. This is supported by some dictionaries. However, there are some important historical and current differences. In English medicine, inoculation referred only to the practice of variolation until the very early 1800s. When Edward Jenner introduced smallpox vaccine in 1798, this was initially called "cowpox inoculation" or "vaccine inoculation". Soon, to avoid confusion, smallpox inoculation continued to be referred to as "variolation" (from variola = smallpox) and cowpox inoculation was referred to as "vaccination" (from Jenner's use of "variolae vaccinae" = smallpox of the cow). Then, in 1891 Louis Pasteur proposed that the terms vaccine and vaccination should be extended to include the new protective procedures being developed. "Immunization" refers to the use of all vaccines but also extends to the use of antitoxin, which contains preformed antibody to e.g. diphtheria or tetanus exotoxins. "Inoculation" is now more or less synonymous in nontechnical usage with "injection" etc., and the question e.g. 'Have you had your flu injection/vaccination/inoculation/immunization?' should not cause confusion. The focus is on what is being given and why, not the literal meaning of the technique used.