whetted boylston and mather do? they form a hypothesis based upon this information that they gather around throughout observation and through reading. they form a hypothesis and they tested. it works, they retested and then they retested again and retested and they form a theory about inoculation, that this is the way to save lives. i am not a scientist. i am an historian. you know that the scientific method, right? i know my sixth grade science vaguely, but i know enough about it to know that that is a scientific matter. mather in boylston come across as extremely scientific so this debate raises this very curious debate. and he steps into the fray in august of 1721? you are going to love this. these brother started newspaper called the new england current, and who are these brothers? a young james and benjamin franklin. and their paper is started for the primary purpose of opposing inoculation. they serve as a mouthpiece for the opposition and they print every scurrilous attack on inoculation upon the power of the

i think the anger was directed more at boylston and mather, people who are inoculating others. there were necessarily blaming the people who were inoculated. you raise an interesting point i want to extrapolate. the first person to go ashore and boston was an african sailor anti-infective and other african sailor who resided in boston. and what's interesting in all of this is nobody ever blamed them for the race. the doctors made their racist arguments against others, but no one ever blamed them. they found no evidence of it. and it's really fascinating this whole thing -- you know, you have the ratification of smallpox, trace it back to jenner, trace it back to mather and then retreated back to non-western parts of the world. it's amazing how mather was able to use this medicine is being practiced in greece and turkey, being practiced in china as akin to the intention in the 1700's. i'm not sure they could always explain either. they knew that a word and they were then able to transmit this information to these enlightened europeans and colonists who were experienced in their

hour before they were inoculated, it was very possible that no one died of inoculation, although boylston himself admitted that six people died and it was possible at least a few of those contracted smallpox and then he inoculated them simultaneously and blamed the inoculation. it is possible. they had this great medical discovery and you can trace this discovery. i don't really tell the story because i really focus in on boston. may be one of you can ride it, about lady montagu practicing the same procedure in england and encountering much the same opposition. .. >> the deadliest in all of human history. it was a great effect. what i argue in the book in the covenant is that the attacks on the ministers, they are getting into the mud with their opponents. the vicious debate that raises in the streets. and in the public humans and pep -- pamphlets. the idea of the first puritans of the city on a hill, they are doing to bind themselves together and with god to form the perfect society, perfect church, be a model for the perform of england. it was simply torn apart. other events contributed