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Faith and Healing
In the 1700s, many faith leaders believed only prayer could cure disease, but others looked to science.
During Boston’s 1721 smallpox epidemic, Puritan minister Cotton Mather broke with other clergy and advocated for preventative inoculation—a practice he learned of, in part, from a man he enslaved named Onesimus. Similarly, a Catholic nun in French New Orleans, Sister Francis Xavier Hebert, freely used her scientific knowledge—compounding herbs and other plants into medicines for the cure and comfort of those in her convent and beyond. |