Benjamin Moseley

Born in Essex, Moseley received his medical training in Paris and London and began his practice in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1768.

During his sixteen years there, he studied and published pamphlets on diseases he encountered, like dysentery, and on the medicinal and agricultural effects of the island's consumable crops, like coffee and sugar.

[1] His practice during this time was profitable, and upon his return to Britain in 1784 he had enough money to travel across Europe and to obtain more medical training, earning an M.D.

Beginning in 1799, in pamphlets and journal articles, he expressed doubt as to the efficacy of using doses of cowpox to protect patients from becoming ill with smallpox and outrage at his medical colleagues for adopting the new practice so quickly.

He put forth theories that vaccinations would have horrible side-effects, including physical ailments like whooping cough and intellectual afflictions like insanity.