Zabdiel Boylston

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Zabdiel Boylston (born 1676 or 1679 in Brookline, Massachusetts; died 1766) was a medical doctor. He apprenticed with his father, an English surgeon named Thomas Boylston. He also studied under the Boston physician Dr. Cutter, never attending a formal medical school.

Boylston was privately educated in medicine, and is known for holding several "firsts" for an American-born physician. He performed the first surgical operation by an American physician, the first removal of gall bladder stones in 1710, and was the first to remove a breast tumor in 1718^[1].

[edit] Inoculation

During a smallpox outbreak in 1721 in Boston, he inoculated several (244 reported) people by applying pus from a smallpox sore to a small wound on the subjects, a method said to be used in Africa before. Initially, he used the method on two slaves and on his own son. This was the first introduction of inoculations to the United States. The idea for this was actually conceived by Cotton Mather, while Boylston carried it out.

His method was initially met by hostility and outright violence from Boston religious groups, but authorities hesitantly declared the inoculations a success. In 1724, Boylston traveled to London, where he published his results as Historical Account of the Small-Pox Inoculated in New England, and became a fellow of the Royal Society two years later. Afterwards, he returned to Boston.