DOUGLASS 326 DOUGLASS Douglass, William (1692-1752). A man of no mean ability, but endowed with obstinacy and conceit, Dr. Douglass has been described as "always positive and sometimes accurate." William Douglass was born in Gif- ford, near Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1692. It is not known when he first came to America, but it is known that he studied in Paris, and was familiar with Latin, Greek, English, French and Dutch. He visited the French and Eng- lish islands in the West Indies in 1717 and finally settled in Boston in 1718 and practised medicine. Sometime previous to the outbreak of small- pox in Boston, in April or May, 1721, Dr. Douglass received from England the "Philo- sophical Transactions of the Royal Society," containing an account of the observations of Timonius and Pylarinus on inoculation for small-pox. These he sent to Dr. Cotton Ma- ther, who, after reading and digesting their contents, conceived an enthusiastic belief in the efficacy of the practice. Mather started at once on a vigorous campaign of education and tried to elicit the support and interest of the medical profession. Probably he treated Doug- lass with too little consideration. At all events Douglass put himself in opposition, and fought the new movement with all the resources at his command. He refused to loan again the only copy of the comunications of Timonius and Pylarinus, and attacked bitterly the work of Zabdiel Boylston, who had become the medi- cal disciple of the learned minister, Mather. Douglass's opposition to inoculation brought him into considerable prominence. By 1730, when the small-pox appeared again, he had embraced inoculation, although with a bad grace. He must have been held in considerable repute for he was made vice-president of the Scotch Charitable Society in 1721, and presi- dent in 1728, an office he held until his death. He was physician to many of his country- men in Boston. He was an ardent botanist, and was said to have a collection of more than eleven hundred plants, all found near Boston. In Douglass's "Account of the Miliary Fever and Sore Throat," published in 1735-6, it ap- pears that he had been in the habit of using mercurials in his practice for some time, and that as early as 1721 he used calomel in the treatment of smallpox. We learn that Doug- lass had great success in the treatment of the "throat distemper by the use of "well dulcified mercury, specially when joined with camphor." In the dedication of his essay on inoculation. he mentions mercury, antimony, opium and Peruvian bark as the most important remedies in the hands of physicians of his time. He was a warm advocate and supporter of Gov. Belcher's administration, which ceased in 1741. His propensity for writing was considerable, but he was not true to his principles, and veered about, as in the small-pox controversy, for when Gov. Shirley came in, Douglass failed to applaud the same policies that found favor under Belcher. He was sarcastic and disagree- able in his remarks about his contemporaries, and a caviller at the established order of things. In 1749 he published the first volume of his historical and political summary, em- bracing an account of all the American colo- nies. The second volume was not published until after his death. He published observa- tions made by him respecting the variation of the needle of the compass, and also remarks on the differences of time in various parts of the world. He died suddenly, October 23, 1752. So far as is known he was never mar- ried. In his "Practical Essay Concerning the Small-pox," London, 1730, Dr. Douglass says (p. 63) : "How mean or rash soever the be- ginning of inoculating the small-pox may have been, if many years practised by old women only, and neglected by the sons of art in Tur- key; if in another part of the world a person of no literature, and of habitual rashness (referring to Zabdiel Boylston), from a third hand hearing of an overcredulous person, first attempted it indifferently on all who would pay for it without regard to age, sex. constitution, other circumstances and cau- tions, which tryals of such consequence require, as it is one of the inconveni- ences of human life that all the world over, ignorance, assurance and rashness pushes on some to attempt without fear or discretion what would make the most exquisite artist tremble to touch ; nevertheless — if in the event by re- peated experiments it prove useful, it ought to be embraced." Walter L. Burrace. .^nler. Mcrl. Biog.. .Tames Thaclier, 1828. A Brief Memoir, by Timothy L. Tennison, M. D. Biog. Diet, of the First Settlers 'of N. E., John Eliot, 1809. History of Harvard Medical School, T. F. Har- rington, 1905. Med. Com. Mass. Med. Soc, 1836. vol. v, p. 195. The Abuses and Scandals of Some Late Pamphlets in Favor of Inoculation of the Small-pox Mod- estly obviated and Inoculation furtlier considered in a Letter to .Xlexander .Sandilande, M. D.. and F. R. S., in London, bv William Douglass, M. D., 1722.
