G706 The Fever of 1721; The Epidemic That Revolutionized Medicine and American Politics
Title of the book: The Fever of 1721; The Epidemic That Revolutionized Medicine and American Politics Author: Stephen Coss Publisher: Simon and Schuster Publishing Date: 2016 ISBN: 978-1-4767-8308-6 Summary : More than fifty years before the American Revolution, Boston was in revolt against the tyrannies of the Crown, Puritan Authority, and Superstition. This is the story of a fateful year that prefigured the events of 1776. In The Fever of 1721, Stephen Coss brings to life an amazing cast of characters in a year that changed the course of medical history, American journalism, and colonial revolution, including Cotton Mather, the great Puritan preacher, son of the president of Harvard College; Zabdiel Boylston, a doctor whose name is on one of Boston's grand avenues; James and his younger brother Benjamin Franklin; and Elisha Cooke and his protegee; Samuel Adams. During the worst smallpox epidemic in Boston history Mather convinced Doctor Boylston to try a proc...