On January 21st, 1677, the first medical publication in America was circulating around Boston. Its message? How to manage smallpox.
The pamphlet was a broadside, 12 inches by 17 inches, and written by Reverend Thomas Thacher. John Foster of Boston printed and sold it under the title: "A Brief Rule to guide the Common People of New England How to order themselves and theirs in the Small Pocks, or Measles." A second version appeared in 1702. Pamphlets on smallpox continued to circulate (almost as much as the disease) well into the next century--but outbreaks continued even into the early...