The Fever of 1721: The Epidemic That Revolutionized Medicine and American Politics

by Stephen Coss

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 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' 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.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Science, Medicine, Medical, American History, Politics

368 pages, Hardcover

First published March 8, 2016

About the author

The Fever of 1721 is Stephen Coss’s first book. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

Reviews

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extensively researched and well written, The Fever of 1721: The Epidemic That Revolutionized Medicine and American Politics is far more than a straight-forward history of the smallpox outbreak. Coss documents the outbreak and the struggle to test what would become a revolutionary preventive, but the smallpox epidemic is also a springboard to the story of the evolution of the press and the colonies fight with their Mother Country across the ocean.

One of the strongest aspects of this book are the depictions of the people involved. Coss managed to capture these extremely flawed and complex characters in such a way to make them feel very human. Too often in non-fiction an author seems to decide that *this person* is the hero and *this person* is the villain and writes them to reflect that view. Coss depictions were very real. No one was prefect and everyone had their own reasons for what they did. We got to see it, warts and all.

I'd highly recommend this to all lovers of history and non-fiction.

**I received this copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review**

[Darcia Helle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fascinating snapshot of New England society during the early 1700s. While the book's central point is the smallpox epidemic and eventual inoculation, the focus is not at all that narrow. Within and surrounding this topic, we explore relationships, politics, medical care, and religion.

The writing is clear and concise, and the content exceptionally well researched. I found the author's style thoroughly engaging. It's not at all a dry, textbook kind of read. Instead, I felt like I was immersed in the era, meeting the people, experiencing the terror of the epidemic and the fear of the unknown. Having grown up minutes from where much of this took place, I was surprised at how little detail I knew. We learn a bunch of dates and facts in history classes, but rarely the full, human story. And this is a remarkable, human story.

*I received an advance ebook copy from the publisher, via NetGalley, in exchange for my honest review.*

[Bfisher · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book discusses the Boston smallpox epidemic of 1721 as a nexus of political, religious and scientific controversy, but in ways that confound our expectations. We are presented with a pioneering newspaper (with cub reporter Benjamin Franklin inventing Silence Dogood), advancing the cause of freedom of the press in opposition to overbearing imperial authority and in opposition to a dogmatic religious extremist proposing - the cutting-edge medical miracle of inoculation.

Resistance to imperial government in Massachusetts did not spring out of a vacuum in response to the Stamp Act of 1765. There was a long-established tradition of resistance to imperial authority, and this book describes how that was expressed in the 1720’s. However, the most interesting aspect of this book is the intersection of the careers of Cotton Mather and Benjamin Franklin in the birth of a free press and modern medicine.

[Judith · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I could give 6 stars I would. 10 years in being written, this is a volume that takes a "small" bit of history and shows how it reverberates decades later. "Small" because a smallpox epidemic is not "small" but tragic (as those of us 70 and over know; the young should give thanks that they do not know of this disease, which has killed more people than all wars put together, leaving others horribly scarred, blind, and mentally deficient). OK, so we have the epidemic of smallpox not the first nor last in colonial America. But it occurs in Boston early in the lives of certain future Revolutionaries, e.g. Samuel Adams and Benjamin Franklin. Coss shows how the epidemic, Boston/Massachusetts politics (anti-British governor), printing and the un/free press, contemporary medical theory all are intertwined. He handles this multi-headed exposition clearly and well, with some humor at times. From his book I learned more about Ben, but also more about his brother James who endured prison and bankruptcy for his view that the press should be free and also about the doctor who championed inoculation with smallpox pus as a way of giving immunity or at least a lesser virulency to the disease. Jenner used cowpox pus, some 60 years later, so this doctor was very daring--and also willing learn of the practice in Africa from black slaves of Boston (China also did this). So let us praise James Franklin and Dr. Zabdiel Boylston!

[Carol · Rating 3 out of 5]

This first book by Stephen Coss is an imperfectly realized but fascinating account of a series of historical events of which I was previously unaware, surrounding the 1721 Boston smallpox epidemic and its influence on subsequent U.S. history. Most Americans are aware that Benjamin Franklin began his career as a printer's apprentice and ran away to Philadelphia. However, I was unaware that Franklin's brother James was a leading opponent of smallpox vaccination (an understandable position at the time, although one that was later proven wrong) and used his newspaper to promote his views and attack his opponents. One of these opponents was minister Cotton Mather, often viewed almost as a comic-book villain for his role in the Salem witch trials several years earlier. Mather was an early proponent of smallpox vaccination, which had been practiced in Africa for decades, in China since the year 1000, and in Turkey. Mather proposed to Dr. Zabdiel Boylston that he conduct the first U.S. trial of the vaccine. Dr. Boylston later wrote a book about the experiment, widely regarded as the first large-scale medical trial in the U.S. Stephen Coss makes a persuasive case that the events surrounding the fearsome epidemic and vaccine controversy had a great impact on the subsequent events leading up to the American Revolution. In some places the book could be more focused and explicit in relating its material to the material stated in the title. It is somewhat surprising that Mr. Coss does not mention the death of Franklin's (unvaccinated) son Francis Folger Franklin in 1836, an event that is widely believed to have had a great impact on Franklin's subsequent life. If he had earlier helped publish a newspaper loudly opposing vaccination, a feeling of culpability on Franklin's part would have been all the more understandable. Franklin later virtually abandoned his common-law wife Deborah and their surviving daughter with prolonged overseas absences. This book is quite engaging and well worth a read despite the fact that it is somewhat unfocused.

[Blue · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was difficult for me to slog through. I was reminded of college text books that only the fear of an upcoming midterm could force me to finish. And yet I gave it three stars? How do I justify such a rating when I had no joy in the reading of it?

This book was an incredibly researched, and did an amazing job showing how small pox and journalism overlapped and influenced change in the colonies. I've managed to avoid doing much In depth reading about the state of the colonies pre-revolution, so much if the material was new to me.

I'm not sure if it was reassuring or terrifying to see how personalities and spite had such a major role in the policies of the early 1700's. Reassuring that despite the ignorence and petty differences (and some big differences) the country managed to evolve to a better place...which in the most hate filled presidential campaign I've lived through gives me a bit of hope...or just the depressing realization that people have always been ruled by fear and revengeful impulses ...which eliminates my foolish hope that the current political differences are an anomaly that we could outgrow,

Five stars for The Fever of 1721's research and ability to put together the big picture of different aspects of 1721's influencing forces. Two stars for lack of fun in reading the book. Averaging out to three stars (yes, I know that isn't the true averaging out, but I can't rate in percentage of stars, plus having to tough it out to finish the book carries a heavy weight...)

Your results may vary.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I guess you know you're a history geek when you can get outraged on behalf of people who've been dead for more than 200 years. Coss does a great job of capturing a particular moment in colonial America, when a smallpox outbreak in Boston inspired a few brave souls to experiment with inoculation, an experiment that set off a public outcry and served a larger purpose. That outcry, according to Coss, had a lasting impact on ideas about freedom of the press that would inspire a generation of Bostonians and set the stage for a revolution. It's the personal touch that sets this book apart, though--from the touchy and opinionated Cotton Mather, to a young Ben Franklin posing as Silence Dogood in his brother's newspaper, to the courageous doctor Zabdiel Boylston who risked murder charges to inoculate his fellow citizens--and brings a less-known moment in history to life.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this short book on early 18th century Boston. The title of the book is a bit deceiving as you would think the entire book is about the smallpox epidemic. While there is a great deal on the epidemic and the inoculation debate, a great deal of the book deals with the controversies and fights between the royal governor, colonial government, and the newspapers (specifically James Franklin's). I had never read about this time period in Boston, and it truly was the foundation of what became the center of rebellion for the next generation of leaders in the 1760s and 1770s. Recommended for fans of early American History.

[Stephen Escalera · Rating 5 out of 5]

(Disclosure: I received this book for free in return for an unbiased review. I am not required to write a positive review. The opinions that follow are my own)

I love reading history books, especially for the time period of the founding of our nation. I knew about the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, the Siege of Boston, the Sons of Liberty, etc., but what I never really understood was this: what was it about the Boston, Massachusetts area that made it such a hotbed for the fight for American independence? Reading Stephen Coss’s book “The Fever of 1721” has helped me to understand far more than I ever did the role that Boston’s history played.

In the book, Coss focuses on several men and how their lives were interwoven during the smallpox epidemic of 1721. Zabdiel Boylston, a doctor in Boston, dared to conduct inoculations against the disease. Although encouraged by the Puritan preacher, Cotton Mather, Boylston faced opposition from other prominent Bostonian doctors. At the same time, James Franklin and his younger brother/apprentice, Benjamin, launched a newspaper called the New England Courant. Originally started to wage war against Boylston and his inoculation ideas, the Courant quickly grew into something quite unlike either of the two existing Boston newspapers, daring to go against the Boston government.

The book highlights a revolutionary mindset on two fronts. First, by promoting and performing what turned out to be successful inoculations, Boylston paved the way for further developments in the field of immunology. Coss quotes medical historians Beall Jr. and Shrycock, saying “The history of immunology, with all its ultimate values in overcoming infectious diseases began—above the folk level and on a meaningful scale—in the Boston of 1721.” (p.195)

The second revolutionary mindset was that of the free press. When James Franklin published his Courant, he managed to ruffle so many feathers in the government that he was subsequently thrown in jail. But even after his release, he refused to cow to the government (albeit his motives were not always altruistic). He frequently reprinted Cato’s Letters whose “insistence on the preeminence of liberty roused James and his fellow Couranteers in the same way he would galvanize America’s Founding Fathers fifty years later.” (p.158) Because of this, Coss states “James Franklin, a man never mentioned in the discussions of the evolution of American political thought, deserves a share of the credit. Without realizing it, he was introducing what would become one of the pillars of the philosophy justifying American independence.”

Through this time period, Governor Samuel Shute waged a constant power struggles with the Boston council (especially with Elisha Cooke and his political machine) and eventually ran from town. “For the first time, Americans had both the strategy and the infrastructure necessary to wage an ongoing and highly effective political resistance against the mandates of the Crown....Ultimately it would prove the mechanism by which a revolution was launched.” (p.254)

Throughout the book, Coss does a superb job of bringing the characters to life. He interweaves the accounts of the smallpox fever and the political fever together seamlessly. The Fever of 1721 has greatly helped my understanding of the much deeper role Boston played in the founding of our nation that I had previously understood. I would highly recommend this book to all students of our nation’s history and look forward to Coss’s next contribution.

[Padma · Rating 2 out of 5]

I listened to this as an audio book. I was particularly interested in the smallpox epidemic and the discovery of vaccination and was led to believe this would be the major topic covered in this book. this was not the case.
I did not like the narrator, Bob Souer. I found his tone to be very flat and expressionless. This made it hard to follow what was going on. I also thought the author Stephen Cross, could not make up his mind what the book was really about. He could have benefited by making this into at least three books, a biography of Cotton Mather, one of James Franklin, and one about the history of the newspaper industry in New England.
The book could have used some editing, the author has many unimportant details, like writing that the women fanned themselves in church, that are not relevant to anything that is going on in the story. Also he could not decide whether to use first or last names when referring to the main characters which was confusing to me, especially with a character named "James," which could be a first or last name.
I really enjoyed the parts about smallpox and the influence of the smallpox epidemic on the politicians of that time.
All in all too much for one book.

[Amelia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm really glad I read this book! It sparked an interest in diseases for me. That being said, the title should be altered to "revolutionized WESTERN medicine" since it was made quite clear that the revolutionary medicine (inoculation) was in very successful use in many other parts of the world, and nothing new was discovered. I really enjoyed how the book focused on how the spread of such a monumental discovery was impeded by religious factionalism and press wars (featuring James and Benjamin Franklin!!). However, I think the author focused too much on Cotton Mather on not nearly as much on Dr. Zabdiel Boylston, the person who risked the most and was by far the bravest in his actions during the epidemic. The author at one point seemed very surprised and put off by the fact that the smear campaign against him drained his energy, which I think is the major flaw of this account: the author presents very few insights of his own that expressed a deep understanding of the experiences these people went through.

[Julie Rothenfluh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was really interesting and very relevant to our times. It discusses several concurrent issues - the smallpox epidemic in Boston in 1721, one of the first large scale uses of inoculation, the story of James Franklin and his brother, Benjamin, including James’s publishing of one of the first American independent newspapers, and the beginnings of revolutionary philosophy and actions! Coss ties it all together, including an extensive epilogue that sums up where everyone “ended up”. In addition to the parallels between smallpox and the current pandemic are interesting parallels between pre-revolutionary America and the upheaval following the death of George Floyd. Seems like some things never change!

[Ginni · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was surprised to see that The Fever of 1721 is Stephen Coss's first book. It's so ambitious in scope and thoroughly researched that it matches up against the works of well-established historians and biographers.

The book's main threads are the American colonies beginning to reject distant leadership, Elisha Cooke and the beginning of "populist" politics, James & Benjamin Franklin and the origins of America's philosophy of free speech and free press, and of course, the fight to get inoculation accepted as a treatment for smallpox--in many ways the most significant medical trial in America. The many threads sometimes make the narrative feel scattered, but I see why Coss was compelled to include all of them.

Don't get me wrong--at no point are you going to forget that you're reading a history book. The beginning, especially, takes a bit of effort to get through. But it's fascinating reading, especially if you're already a bit of a history buff.

(I received this book for free through a Goodreads giveaway.)

[Cornmaven · Rating 3 out of 5]

I want to give this more stars, but this is another one of those efforts that tries to make a super strong connection between a certain event and a huge political event, and I didn't buy it.

I was fascinated by the parts that centered on the smallpox epidemic of 1721 in Boston and the first formal inoculation efforts by Dr. Boylston. Cotton Mather's role in this was equally compelling.

Separately, Coss' treatment of James Franklin and brother Benjamin, James' printing business, and the politics that surrounded it as national politics were steaming up was equally fascinating. But I just could not be convinced that the smallpox epidemic was seminal to it; Coss did not prove to me that the epidemic happening when it did, drove the other events or solidified them. I felt that those things would have occurred anyway.

But I really did like the medical stuff a lot.

[Ed Fay · Rating 3 out of 5]

A meticulously well-researched book about pre-Revolutionary America. Three things are focused on during one year in Boston -- the first attempts at inoculating the citzenry against smallpox by a courageous doctor, the beginnings of a free press and the birth of strong political parties. The epidemic and one if its main proponents is a leading Puritan--in itself surprising since they were so close-minded. The story is interesting and educational, but it is tedious and slow reading.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book. Two distinct story arcs relevant to contentious topics today. The first arc is about acceptance and risk of inoculation (precursor to vaccination) to slow aggressive diseases (smallpox in this case) through a population. The second, and more dominant, arc is freedom of the press to publish without censorship, pre-revolutionary concepts that arose in New England. Even before this era of "fake news" and a hard dialog over limits to free, this tug of war was occurring.

[George Avery · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recently read this book and found it a fascinating and, in fact, essential reading in both the history of medicine and in the area of health politics. I am a specialist in health politics and policy, with a PhD in Health Policy from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, and I have done considerable research in the modern setting on issues related to the key themes of the book. I strongly recommend it to anyone with an interest in those areas, or in the development of the Whig tradition of defending liberal ideas and the political values in the Thirteen Colonies before the American Revolution.

Goss' book is fascinating to me because it looks at issues that were at the core of my academic research while on the faculty at Purdue, which are the relationships between health programs and political institutions. In particular, it looks at how the institution of inoculation to prevent smallpox had an impact on New England political institutions. There is little work in this area - my own paper on medical civic action programs, derived from my work for DoD on stability operations and COIN operational doctrine being one - as most health policy and health politics people are embedded in the healthcare and public health community and possess a monotechnic paradigm that focuses solely on the impact of institutions on healthcare programs rather than vice versa.

In another sense, it is fascinating because the prime mover for instituting inoculation was not a scientist or physician, but rather conservative Puritan theologian Cotton Mather, a man more often wrongly painted as a reactionary behind the Salem Witch Trials (in fact, he was one of the few authority figures skeptical of the accusations). Only one physician, Zabdiel Boylston - considered a second rate talent in the local medical community - supported Mather, and the majority of physicians led by the only member of the community with a medical degree, William Douglass, took the anti-vaccination stance. Mather and Boylston managed to implement a program of variolation, inoculation with live smallpox, rather than vaccination - it would be decades before Edward Jenner discovered the efficacy of the Vaccinia virus in preventing smallpox.

Boylston and Mather proved correct, and their inoculation program significantly reduced the mortality rate due to the disease. Anticipating the germ theory, the two proposed that the epidemic was caused by contagion through inhalation of microscopic creatures. This anticipated the Germ Theory of Lister and Koch' work by a century and a half, and in fact has been shown to be an accurate model of the transmission of smallpox.

Mather did have a background in medical science, although not a physician. He was asked to join the Royal Society in 1713, and had published in 1716 an article in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society on the progress of measles. He also had written to the Society papers on other topics such as advanced mathematics and earthquakes. After the Boston epidemic, he sent a brief note to the Royal Society on the inoculation program, one that drew attention to the work of Boylston in addition to motivating Princess Caroline, the wife of Crown Prince George (later King George II) to have her two pre-teen daughters inoculated.

Boylston was invited to speak on the program before the Royal Society in London in 1724, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1726, only the eighth New Englander and first American physician to be so honored. He published in this period, on the urging of Princess Caroline and Hans Sloane, President of the Royal College of Physicians, a book entitled "An Historical Account of the Small-Pox Inoculated in New England." He had kept and presented meticulous statistics on cases of smallpox and outcomes in both the inoculated population and the uninoculated, both before and after implementation of the program, and was able to demonstrate the relative safety and effectiveness of the inoculation program. In truth, it was the first modern epidemiologic trial (albeit a case-control study rather than a randomized controlled trial) and anticipated Lind's work on the use of citrus to prevent scurvy by two decades, and the work of Oliver Wendell Holmes and Ignaz Semmelweiss by over a century, making this a historical landmark in modern epidemiology and medical research.

Overall, a fascinating book.

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had a lot of great history in it and it changed my perspective on some pivotal figures in American history, leaving me more favorably inclined toward both Cotton Mather and Benjamin Franklin, neither of whom I really liked at all prior to this. And it sure did have a lot of parallels to the present time and the present pandemic and the political rhetoric and the commercial inclinations of a free press and the role of public figures in private lives. But I would have liked it more if either the writing style had been slightly less academic or the audiopresentation had been slightly less broadcast journalism. One or the other would have made it easier to follow for more than 20 minutes at a stretch without zoning out As it was, some parts were a real struggle and since the audiobook I had was in MP3 format, with tracks of approx 30 minutes a piece, I didn't always want to go back and start a section over to catch what I had missed.

My takeaways were that more of us should know about Dr. Zabdiel Boyleston who risked so much to try innoculation in order to save the lives of his fellow Bostonians during the epidemic. And who performed one of the first successful mastectomies as treatment for breast cancer. Plus he was a clean freak so a lot more of his patients survived surgery before handwashing was a thing for doctors, let alone patients. An excellent and brave man who was mistreated by officials and Dr. Douglas, who had his own interests in seeing more people die and no extraordinary measures undertaken to address the outbreak. Also that James Franklin should be well known in his own right and not as the mean old brother that Ben was apprenticed to -- he is responsible for much of the American style of print journalism and was a boisterous defender of freedom of the press whose ideas, communicated in his newspaper, shaped the ideas of those who 50 years later would sign the Declaration of Independence. He was also quite gutsy if for less noble seeming reasons, probably because he was a cantankerous sort. But he helped to shape much of what was good about Benjamin Franklin (who I still think was a self-centered mysogynistic old bastard).

Definitely worth the read if you are into history, although I think it might be easier to tackle this one in print than to ear-read it as I did.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars because I found it a tedious read, except for the Epilogue. 4 stars for information...which was incredible. The book covered not only smallpox epidemics and the struggle to get acceptance for inoculation, but the social, religious, and political doings of the times. It's also about James Franklin starting the first independent newspaper, the struggle for freedom of the press, and his relationship with his much younger brother Benjamin.

[Britt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, I learned so much from this book! Pretty much all I knew about the early days of smallpox inoculation is the scene from the John Adams series of his children getting the scary procedure done. I was really surprised to find out that Cotton Mather was actually an early proponent for inoculation. Yea, the guy that supported spectral evidence of witches in Salem, MA believed in vaccinations!!! The opposition at the time to the procedure is somewhat understandable, but it’s sad when you see that history is repeating itself. People thought vaccination could give you the Bubonic plague or as an early proponent joked change your gender. It’s not that different from some anti-vaccination claims now.

[Riley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a well written exploration of the connections between inoculations, epidemic, and the freedom of the press in the pre-Revolution colonies. I really enjoyed the way the author put together and connected the dots between the different but concurrent events of the times.

[Michele · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent history of early adoption of smallpox inoculation in early eighteenth-century Boston. This book also gives a great account of the New England Courant newspaper that was published by James Franklin and his little brother, Benjamin, who acted as his apprentice at that time. There is a great deal of early activity of Founding Fathers of the later American Revolution or their forefathers, which helps in our understanding of later events. The only thing I would really have enjoyed more would have been if Stephen Coss had expanded on Washington's familiarity with inoculation (if he could find the history) and more about his use of it in the revolution. That little tidbit was fascinating and would have been nice to have fleshed out more.

[Mary Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Where to start.....first off a good insight into innoculation during the early 18th century. Secondly, the book ties in politics, freedom of the press and religion together very well. Good information for those who like Early American history. Ths book seems to add insight into a period of time that really isn't talked about much. Easy read.

[Stacy · Rating 3 out of 5]

In The Fever of 1721, author Stephen Coss brings to life the city of Boston Massachusetts in 1721: its political atmosphere, religious leanings and the smallpox epidemic that came crashing onto the scene. When inoculation was put forth as a means to combat the epidemic many feared it would instead spread the disease further. These opinions found voice in a new periodical titled the New-England Courant, published by James Franklin and his soon-to-be famous brother Benjamin.

Coss does a fine job of making the time period and smallpox epidemic come alive, however the backstory of the New-England Courant creates a competing storyline. Though both subjects are interrelated because the Courant took a strong position against inoculation, the plotline veers off in the latter half of the book focusing on James Franklin’s groundbreaking work in disseminating thoughts and philosophies that later helped form the backbone of the American Revolution. This was highly interesting stuff but it did not adhere well to the smallpox issue, making the book seem like it is trying to balance too many ideas. Coss really has two books here and while the epilogue works to tie the two areas together, the book as whole lacks a cohesive structure. Overall this is a well-researched book chock full of interesting facts, but the divisiveness of the two competing subjects is distracting.

(Reviewed for San Francisco Book Review)

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read an adult nonfiction book that wasn't a memoir--it's a miracle!

I had every intention of skimming this one, until the next thing you know, I'm at 30% on my Kindle. Fascinating stuff here, and this history minor ended up highlighting a lot of passages. I started reading it because I had quite a few ancestors living in Boston and Cambridge during this time, and I wanted to learn more about the time period. Crazy to think that the Franklins and their newspaper were like the Colbert of their time--I bet those young men were the toast of the taverns!
C
Best parts of the book though were about the smallpox epidemic. Honestly, I knew nothing about inoculation, and I find it fascinating that Cotton Mather of the Salem witch trials fame, was a supporter. I loved learning how Africans and the Chinese were ahead of the Europeans on this topic.

I loved all the tidbits--for example, did you name that Cotton's son Creasy (Increase like his grandpa) "impregnated a prostitute in 1716" Ha! I know one of my ancestor's died on the Mayflower before he got off the boat--I wonder if smallpox killed him?

Anyway, if you read history, read this. Great stuff.

[Wesley Roth · Rating 3 out of 5]

After learning about the book in a Goodreads giveaway, I picked up a copy of the just released "The Fever of 1721" at the Strand Bookstore in NYC. Stephen Coss has done a commendable job in researching and breathing new life into a key year in our country's history almost 200 years ago.

The reader learns just how big of heroes (and at tremendous risk to themselves and families) that Dr. Zabdiel Boylston and Cotton Mather were. Coss tells the tale of how inoculation was introduced into the United States to treat smallpox. A tabloid-worthy cast of characters are woven into the story as the fear of inoculation was widespread and deeply-held. As a side-story, the story of the launch of independent newspapers in America with James and Benjamin Franklin is also described in detail.

If you don't know much about American history around the early 1700s, or fascinated by the history of disease/outbreaks/treatments/cures (or no cure yet like for cancer in "The Emperor of All Maladies" which I'm also reading), this would be a good book to pick up.

[mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting piece of history, with some themes echoing forward to the present day. In 1721 a smallpox epidemic had once again hit Boston. These epidemics frequently killed a significant percent of the local population; one in Boston in 1677 killed about 12% of the local population, the one in 1721 that this book chronicles killed about 8% of the total population of Boston at the time. In the midst of the epidemic a local doctor, Zabdiel Boyleston, began what were likely the first trials of inoculation in this continent. He used fluid from the sores of patients suffering from the disease, and the live virus frequently caused illness, sometimes severe but rarely fatal, in the inoculated patients. Naturally, there was much suspicion and opposition to this new medical practice, but its efficacy in saving many patients lead to inoculation, and its more refined cousin, vaccination, becoming a standard of public hygiene. It would be useful for modern day anti-vaxxers to be more aware of the devastation that epidemics used to cause.

[Sherry · Rating 3 out of 5]

The hype for the book makes a somewhat tortured connection between the epidemic and politics, but makes it. I found it fascinating to read what happened in one city in one pivotal year. For the first time in America, people were inoculated against a contagious disease - smallpox. For the first time, a newspaper really stirred the pot, posting opposing opinions about the inoculations and other matters. This is the birth of freedom of the press, and James (and Benjamin) Franklin brought it forward with their paper. The seeds of the Revolutionary War are all here, growing in Boston. Well worth reading.

[Conchetta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not so much history of live small pox vaccination in the eighteenth century but more about the beginnings of the concept of freedom of the press. Largely about Ben Franklin's brother, James. He had his own place in history.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eye opener-- great read