First Principles: What America's Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country

by Thomas E. Ricks

Zabdiel Boylston, uncle to John’s mother, Susanna, was one of the most prominent physicians in colonial America, the first to perform some kinds of surgeries, and also the first to perform a smallpox inoculation—using a technique apparently learned from an African who was enslaved.