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".
Balmis Expedition The Balmis Expedition (1803–1806) was a three-year mission to Spanish America and Asia led by Dr. Francisco Javier de Balmis with the aim of vaccinating millions against smallpox. Vaccination, a much safer way to prevent smallpox than older methods such as inoculation, had been introduced by the English physician Edward Jenner in 1798.