TheMaterialismofBiologicalEncounters 125
is more pertinent to highlight another aspect, closely related to the idea
of "public knowledge," namely the eminently public nature of the
debate.The1721inoculationcontroversywasprobablythefirstincident
incolonialNorthAmericainwhichnotacoterieofeliteexpertsbutthe
generalpublicinNewEngland'slargestcityfunctionedasthearbitersof
what could count as the appropriate medical response to a life-
threatening infectious disease. The result was ambiguous, if not simply
erroneous(proposingthewrongcure).
In theensuingbattle oftheworldsandwords,religionvs.medicine,
institutional vs. demotic knowledge, both sides relied heavily on the
(mass) media of their time. These were pretty much the same media
which Habermas and others have also listed as essential for the
formation of the bourgeois public sphere in other parts of the Global
North at that time: newspaper columns, pamphlets, broadsides, etc.
These were the channels of communication "capable not only of
efficientdisseminationofmedicalinformationbutalsoofthedefenseof
that dissemination against naysayers" (Sivils 42). More importantly,
these media produced not only information but a steadily growing
proliferation of often conflicting public interventions: suggestions and
opinions which not only in retrospect seem to occlude the more
narrowlymedicalissuesatstake.
Mather personally entered the fray. He was a polymath with a solid
body of medical knowledge, much of it far in advance of his times.
Some knowledge had been acquired the hard way: New England's most
prominentclergymanhadlosthiswifeandthreeofhischildrenduringa
previous smallpox outbreak. Mather was also probably the first
American ever to articulate a germ theory of disease in public (Mather,
AngelofBethesdaxi, xviii) and was uniquely positioned to win support
forit.Asanexperiencedwriterofwhatistodaycalledthegenreofnon-
fictionsciencewriting,henormally knewhow to convinceothers.^77 His
(^77) Mather was an experienced practitioner in this genre. During an earlier
medicalemergency,thecombinedsmallpoxandyellowfeverepidemicof1702,
which had also affected three of his sons, he had written what is considered as
"one of America's first medical self-help manuals (Sivils 42), published under
the titleA Letter—About a Good Management Under the Distemper of the
Measles.Boston:T.Green,1713.Print.