Background
He apprenticed with his father, an English surgeon named Thomas Boylston.
He apprenticed with his father, an English surgeon named Thomas Boylston.
He also studied under the Boston physician Doctor Cutler, never attending a formal medical school (the first medical school in North America was not founded until 1765).
Boylston is known for holding several "firsts" for an American-born physician: He performed the first surgical operation by an American physician, the first removal of gall bladder stones in 1710, and was the first to remove a breast tumor in 1718. During a smallpox outbreak in 1721 in Boston, he inoculated about 248 people by applying pus from a smallpox sore to a small wound on the subjects, a method said to have been previously used in Africa. This was the first introduction of inoculations to the United States.
His method was initially met by hostility and outright violence from other physicians, and many threats were made on his life, with some even threatening to hang him on the nearest tree.
During this hostility, his family was also in a dangerous situation. Even after the violence had subsided, he visited his patients only at midnight and while disguised.
In 1724, Boylston traveled to London, where he published his results as Historical Account of the Small-Pox Inoculated in New England, and became a fellow of the Royal Society two years later. Afterward, he returned to Boston.
Royal Society.