Faith and Healing

In the 1700s, many faith leaders believed only prayer could cure disease, but others looked to science.

During Boston’s 1721 smallpox epidemic, Puritan minister Cotton Mather broke with other clergy and advocated for preventative inoculation—a practice he learned of, in part, from a man he enslaved named Onesimus. Similarly, a Catholic nun in French New Orleans, Sister Francis Xavier Hebert, freely used her scientific knowledge—compounding herbs and other plants into medicines for the cure and comfort of those in her convent and beyond.

Pamphlets arguing for and against smallpox inoculations, 1721 and 1722

Pamphlets arguing for and against smallpox inoculations, 1721 and 1722

Loan from National Library of Medicine

Sister Francis Xavier Herbert’s mortar and pestle, 1697–1792

Sister Francis Xavier Herbert’s mortar and pestle, 1697–1792

Loan from Ursuline Sisters of New Orleans

Detail from a painting imagining the 1727 arrival of Sister Francis Xavier Herbert’s order of nuns, 1859

Detail from a painting imagining the 1727 arrival of Sister Francis Xavier Herbert’s order of nuns, 1859

Courtesy of Ursuline Convent New Orleans Archive & Museum

Cotton Mather, 1728

Cotton Mather, 1728

Courtesy of Library of Congress