Adams Papers
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https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-15-02-0042

John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 9 June 1801

John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams

10.

9. June 1801.

My dear Brother.

I wrote you last week that I expected to sail on board the Catherine, Captain Ingersoll, from Hamburg for New-York—1 But he goes so much sooner than I expected, that I am unable to take the advantage of this opportunity, and shall be obliged to wait for another— Perhaps even, I may embark for Philadelphia, though from various reasons I am averse to going there; balanced only by the single motive of a more apparent probability that we shall see you.

My wife is yet unable to walk up and down stairs— But we hope in about ten days to leave Berlin— Master George is going through the process of vaccine inoculation, in which we have not an absolute confidence, because experience is not yet old enough upon the point— But we think it some security, and have not time to carry through the other sort of inoculation— The vaccine practice is becoming very general here, and spreading very fast throughout Europe.2

Ever your’s

A.

RC (MBCo); addressed: “Thomas B. Adams Esqr. / Philadelphia.”; internal address: “Thomas B. Adams Esqr.”; endorsed: “J. Q Adams Esqr: / 9th June 1801 / 16 Septr: Recd: / 18th: Do acknd: / private No 10.”

1JQA to TBA, 30 May, above.

2GWA was probably vaccinated using Dr. Edward Jenner’s method of infecting patients with the relatively benign cowpox to confer protection against smallpox. Jenner’s approach was discovered in 1796 and widely used in Europe by 1800, after which it was introduced in the United States. JA, AA, and their children were inoculated years earlier using the more dangerous method of variolation, in which fresh serum from a smallpox blister was injected into a thin puncture in the skin (vols. 1:14; 2:37, 80, 109; Stefan Riedel, “Edward Jenner and the History of Smallpox and Vaccination,” Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings, 18:23–24 [Jan. 2005]; Jay, Selected Papers description begins The Selected Papers of John Jay, ed. Elizabeth M. Nuxoll and others, Charlottesville, Va., 2010– . description ends , 3:522).

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