Cotton Mather was pro-vaccine

Cotton Mather never ceases to amaze me.  He is a very complicated man.


God’s Will?

The religious debate was also important. Mather, who had lost his wife and three youngest children in a measles epidemic, argued that inoculation was a gift from God. Those opposed to inoculation argued that epidemic diseases afflicted the people for a divine reason, and that to attempt to prevent them was to oppose God’s will. Others argued that inoculation, with its roots in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, was a heathen practice not suitable for Christians.[1]