On April 22, 1721, a British ship arrived in Boston Harbor. On board, one of the sailors had begun to exhibit symptoms of smallpox. He was quickly quarantined, but several more members of the crew soon fell ill with the disease. An outbreak of the disease spread quickly through the city [1]. As the epidemic worsened, Cotton Mather reached out to the medical community of Boston, imploring them to use the inoculation method. One physician, Zabdiel Boylston, heeded his call, but most other doctors were hostile to the idea. At the forefront of the anti-inoculation contingency was one of Boston’s only physicians who actually held a medical degree, Dr. William Douglass. The arguments against inoculation were varied, ranging from disagreement on religious grounds to scientific uncertainty. While many argued that inoculation violated divine law, by either inflicting harm on innocent people or by attempting to counter God’s specific will, the main argument that Douglass made was that inoculation was untested and seemingly based on folklore. Douglas feared that unchecked use of inoculation would only quicken the spread of disease throughout the city.