A Suttonian in America

Abstract

This chapter explores the practice of Suttonian inoculation in America. In Britain, there were not really any challenges to the Suttons' claim of their inoculation method's originality. However, most of those who practised the new method in Britain were members of the Sutton family or practitioners who were credited, having bought the Sutton seal of approval. Not many tried their luck abroad. In particular, there seemed to be little incentive to set up in practice in the American colonies. Smallpox inoculation had been pioneered in Boston in 1721, the same year as the Newgate trial in London. In some of the thirteen counties of colonial America it had been banned altogether, in others it had been practised with considerable success. Why cross the Atlantic for such an unpromising venture? One who did was James Latham, an army sergeant who, before he was posted to Quebec with the threat of revolution growing in the colonies to the south, had got himself accredited as a Suttonian inoculator.