No One Should Have Survived - But Thanks To Him, They Did

PushBlack
July 9, 2019

Residents in Boston, Massachusetts, were far from safe in 1791. An outbreak had begun to spread, one of the deadliest the world had seen: smallpox.

Hundreds of millions of people across the globe who have been infected with this contagious disease have perished.

But that year in Boston, an enslaved African man would become a savior.

The smallpox epidemic rapidly spread. The disease infected half of Boston’s 11,000-person population. 

With the body count rising and no cure in sight, a slaveholder turned to his enslaved property for help: Onesimus. 

Onesimus was no stranger to smallpox. Colonization reintroduced the disease to Africa, where they practiced variolation, a method to prevent the spread of smallpox. 

It required taking infectious material from the blisters of smallpox patients and, in a controlled manner, contaminating a healthy person. Doing so meant milder smallpox symptoms and potential immunity.

While smallpox inoculation came with risks, those “who acquired the disease naturally [during this epidemic] were almost six times more likely to die than those who acquired it by variolation,” according to HistoryOfVaccines.org. 

Following Onesimus’ medical wisdom, a local physician variolated his son and other enslaved people. The result? Only 1 in 40 who were inoculated died!

From a continent deemed “savage” came the smallpox prevention method America needed. Variolation’s introduction laid the groundwork for the smallpox cure - thanks to Onesimus’ medical contribution!

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