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Book Cover
Book
Author Coss, Stephen, author

Title The fever of 1721 : the epidemic that revolutionized medicine and American politics / Stephen Coss

Copies

LOCATION CALL NO. STATUS
 Bangor Pub. Lib. Stacks  616.9 .C822f    AVAILABLE  
 Maine State Lib. Stacks  OFFSITE 616.912 C836f 2016    AVAILABLE  
 UM Orono Stacks  RC183.1 .C67 2016    AVAILABLE  
 USM POR Stacks  RC183.1 .C67 2016    AVAILABLE  
Edition First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition
Phys Descr xiii, 350 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm
Note BPL: Norman Minsky Fund.
ORO: Gift of Frances Robinson Mitchell
USM: Gift of Matthew Edney
"The epidemic that revolutionized medicine and American politics"--Page facing the title page.
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 protégé; Samuel Adams. During the worst smallpox epidemic in Boston history Mather convinced Doctor Boylston to try a procedure that he believed would prevent death--by making an incision in the arm of a healthy person and implanting it with smallpox. "Inoculation" led to vaccination, one of the most profound medical discoveries in history. Public outrage forced Boylston into hiding, and Mather's house was firebombed. A political fever also raged. Elisha Cooke was challenging the Crown for control of the colony and finally forced Royal Governor Samuel Shute to flee Massachusetts. Samuel Adams and the Patriots would build on this to resist the British in the run-up to the American Revolution. And a bold young printer James Franklin (who was on the wrong side of the controversy on inoculation), launched America's first independent newspaper and landed in jail. His teenage brother and apprentice, Benjamin Franklin, however, learned his trade in James's shop and became a father of the Independence movement. One by one, the atmosphere in Boston in 1721 simmered and ultimately boiled over, leading to the full drama of the American Revolution"-- Provided by publisher
"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"-- Provided by publisher
Note Includes bibliographical references and index
Contents Trouble year. Idol of the mob ; James and Benjamin ; The fallen angel -- Grievous calamity. The most terrible minister of death ; His Majesty's Ship Seahorse ; Pestilence and politics ; Onesimus ; The experiment ; Malignant filth ; America's first independent newspaper ; The cup which I fear ; The Hell-Fire Club ; A man on a cross ; The deadliest time ; Honest wags ; The assassination attempt ; A death in the house ; Pointed satyr ; An epidemic's end -- American monsters. Sons of Cato, sons of Calef ; The invention of Silence Dogood ; The arrest of James Franklin ; The printer and his devil ; Three exits
Subject Smallpox -- Vaccination -- History
Smallpox -- Vaccination -- United States -- History -- 18th century
Medicine -- United States -- History
Alt Author Mitchell, Frances Robinson. donor. MeU
OCLC # 913303839
ISBN # 9781476783086
147678308X
9781476783116
147678311X