THE AGE OF REASON

The age of reason began in Europe with the philosophers and scientist of the XVII and XVIII century, who called themselves rationalists. Rationalism is the belief that human beings can arrive at truth.
The rationalists saw God differently. The great English rationalist Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727),who formulated the laws of gravity and motion, compared God to a clockmaker. The rationalist believed that God  special gift to humanity was reason.

From the earliest colonial days, Americans had to be generalists and tinkerers; they had to make do with what the had, and they had to achieve results.
One of the most important radicals who analyzed the rationalism and the religion in that time was Thomas Paine, who wrote the book "The Age Of Reason".

SMALLPOX PLAGUE (The vaccine)

The unlikely hero of America’s first foray into scientific exploration was strict Puritan Cotton Mather (1663-1728), who was interested in natural science and medicine.

As we wrote in the last entrance smallpox was one of the worst diseases of the XVII and XVIII century, it spread rapidly and was often lethal.

Reverend Cotton Mather was a prominent Boston minister who had deard a description of the African practice of inoculation from his Sudanece slave in 1706.

At the of the epidemic of 1721 he was working on what would be th first schoraly medicine essay written in America. His religious point if view didn't stop him from doing researches for cures for specific diseases.

In June of the same year (1721) he started a public campaign for promoting inoculation in Boston.

The medical cummunity of the city was violently opposed to the idea of such an experiment. In November Mather's house was bombed but despite such fierce opposition he succeded at inoculating nearly three hundred people.

THE SMALLPOX PLAGUE

In this entrance we will be writing about the smallpox plague that erradicated most of the native american population and disfigured the rest.

The Smallpox disease was first introduced to America by the Europeans in 1507 when they landed in the Caribbean Island called Hispaniola, from there it spread all over the country, one of the worst epidemics that swept Boston ocurred in 1721.

 

On April 22, 1721 a British ship that had recently left the Caribbean docked in Boston.

 

 

Some days after their landing in Boston one of the crew's member presented sings of having the disease, he was confined to a house near the dock with a red flag with the message: "God have mercy of this house". 

It was tought that smallpox had been effectively contained but when May came more of the men got sick too. Despite the effort of containing it cases of the disease started showing among the residents of the city.