Massachusetts smallpox epidemic

[3] The disease was hypothesized to be transmitted due to an increase in the immigration of European settlers to the region who brought Old World smallpox aboard their ships.

Most Europeans were at least partially immune to the disease due to high levels of exposure from living conditions which were often in close contact with Iivestock and in areas with large human populations.

While the European settlers remained mostly unaffected by smallpox in 1630, they witnessed their Native American neighbors fall victim to it rapidly.

A New England colonist in 1630 said the Native Americans "fell down so generally of this disease as they were in the end not able to help one another, not to make a fire, nor to fetch a little water to drink, nor any to bury the dead...".

This included Increase Mather, a clergyman and one of Harvard College's first presidents, who stated that the smallpox epidemic was God's solution to the Native American and Puritan land disputes.

[citation needed] The epidemic continued and by 1633, smallpox infected entire tribes and left the people unable to care for each other or bury their dead.

[1] There is a hypothesis that Native populations might have had a higher concentration of deaths compared to European settlers due to "protein-calorie malnutrition" from 1500 to 1800 in the New World.

The symptoms of protein-calorie malnutrition influence the immune system and also persisting weight loss, anemia, slow wound healing, and in some cases muscular dystrophy.

The Wampanoag people were the first indigenous population to have contact with the European settlers arriving in Plymouth off the Mayflower.

As a means of treating their conditions, people began to pray to their Christian God and participate in fasting as well as repenting for their sins.

This doctor had a history of performing risky procedures, and when it was time to try inoculation he tested his hypothesis on his six-year-old son.

Dr. Boylston was threatened to be hanged by townsfolk because they believed that the smallpox disease was an act of God and the doctor should not interfere.