ジェフリー・ライトさんのインスタグラム写真 - (ジェフリー・ライトInstagram)「April 22, 1721, British ship carrying a sailor w/ smallpox symptoms lands in Boston Harbor. By Winter 1722, half the 11,000 residents of Boston have been infected; 850 are dead. That year, a man known as Onesimus inspires the first iteration of a vaccine in the Western world. Thru knowledge of a process (known now as ‘variolation') whereby a small amount of pus from an infected person is applied to an incision in an uninfected person’s skin, Onesimus helps ‘modernize’ Western medicine. The process had been used in China, Turkey and (oh!) W Africa, where Onesimus was born. In 1716, Puritan minister Cotton Mather (of Salem witch trials infamy) learned of the procedure from Onesimus, whom he describes as a ‘pretty intelligent Fellow’ and whose freedom he owns. 1721, Mather champions the process. Fellow Puritans accuse him of 'Negroish’ thinking. One terroristic type tosses a bomb thru his window, w/a note: “COTTON MATHER, You Dog, Dam You; I’l inoculate you with this, with a Pox to you.” Bomb doesn’t explode. Zabdiel Boylston, first physician to use the technique, inoculates 2 slaves & his 13-yr-old son. He's open to ’non-traditional’ med, owing to time on the ‘frontier’ where he's learned healing methods from Natives. 1 out of 40 Bostonians inoculated dies from smallpox. Among those infected naturally, 1 out of 7 dies. Variolation gains acceptance. Boston survives. 300 yrs later, inoculation fears remain, particularly among black Americans. COVID has killed black folk at a disproportionately high rate. We’re being vaccinated at a disproportionately low rate. I can't tell anyone what to do with her/his body, but I’m getting the Pfizer vaccine the minute it’s available to me. Its mRNA technology is fascinating. The husband & wife team who pioneered this usage of mRNA will win the Nobel Prize. They’re Germans of Turkish descent. Like Onesimus, outsiders to some of their fellow citizens. The Tuskegee Experiment and sub-par medical outcomes are not the entirety of our story. Our history is broader & more beautiful. We’re not always under the boot. Sometimes we’re free, as Onesimus was after helping to save Boston. Anyway, thanks for coming to my Dred Talk. #BHM」2月26日 23時57分