via Wikimedia
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!