Page:Early History of Medicine in Philadelphia - George W Norris.djvu/119

 In 1726 a vessel with the smallpox on board arrived, though nothing was said of its spreading in the town. In 1730 a severe epidemic of it prevailed, and it was at this period that inoculation was introduced among us.

—This practice had been brought into England in 1721, and adopted to some extent in the sister colony of Massachusetts in the same year, and the prevalence of the disease led a number of our citizens to submit themselves to it.

Under the date of March 4th, 1730, the Pennsylvania Gazette announces that "Joseph Growden, Esq., the first patient of note that led the way in inoculation, is now upon the recovery, having had none but the most favorable symptoms during the whole course of the distemper, which is mentioned to show how groundless all those extravagant reports are that have been spread through the Province to the contrary."

One of the earliest advocates for inoculation, Franklin, who well knew how to influence men by making appeals to their pockets, thus notices the disease in his paper of July 8th, 1731: "The smallpox has quite left the city, the number of those that died here of that distemper is exactly 288, and no more; sixty-four of the number were negroes; if these may