Some lost works of Cotton Mather / by George Lyman Kittredge.

  • Kittredge, George Lyman, 1860-1941.
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Some lost works of Cotton Mather / by George Lyman Kittredge. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

    54/74 (page 462)
    did not lay nor hatch, that he never knew Blistering miss of saving life in the Small-Pox, brc. In his Letter communicated to the R. S. by Mr. Newman in favour of Inoculation he says, the Patient is more healthy after Inoculation, it is usefull to Women in Child-bed, it dries up tedious running Ulcers, makes the crazy consumptive people hearty, and rids people of their former maladies. Thus he makes a Panacea of it.1 To Mather's letter of March, 1722, which Douglass mentions first, we shall return in due season.2 What concerns us now is, of course, the latter part of Douglass's paragraph, containing quotations from his [Mather's] Letter communicated to the R. S. by Mr. Newman.' Douglass, as Dr. Green reminds me, had the reputation of being always positive and sometimes accurate. This time he was accurate enough for all practical purposes. The sentences that he quotes occur, almost word for word, in the article communicated by Newman.3 Let us now turn to Mather's Diary. On November 24, 1721, he notes: I draw up the Method of Proceeding in the Inoculation of the Small-Pox, and communicate Copies of it, that so Physicians about the Countrey may know how to manage it.4 And on December 1, he remarks: 1 A Dissertation concerning Inoculation of the Small-Pox (Boston, 1730), 8. The author's name does not occur on the title-page, but the dedication (to John Jekyll) is signed W. D., and there has never been any doubt that Douglass wrote the pamphlet. He repeated considerable passages from it in his Summary (an acknowledged work), where the passage just quoted appears in the following shape: — Dr. C. Mather, who first set up Inoculation in Boston, in his pub- lished Accounts of it, shows what small Dependance there is upon weak Authori- ties, 'some Cats 1721 in Boston had a regular Small-Pox and died of it.' — During the Small-Pox, the Pigeons and Dunghill Fowls did not lay nor hatch. — He never knew Blistering miss of saving Life in the Small-Pox. — The Patient is more healthy after Inoculation, it is useful to Women in Child-bed, — it dries up tedious running Ulcers, — makes the Crazy Consumptive People hearty, — and rids People of their former Maladies (11. 411, 1751). 2 See pp. 475 ff., infra. 1 The Patient gets abroad quickly, and is most sensibly Stronger, and in better Health than he was before. The Transplantation has been given to Women in Child-bed, Eight or Nine Days after their Delivery; and they have got earlier out of their Child-bed, and in better Circumstances, than ever in their Lives. Those that have had ugly Ulcers long running upon them, have had them healed on, and by this Transplantation. Some very feeble, crazy, Consumptive People, have upon this Transplantation, grown hearty and got rid of their former Mala- dies (Philosophical Transactions, No. 370, xxxn. 35). * Diary, 11. 660.