Talk:Jonathan Edwards

There's a third JE; the 'medium,' Jon Edwards. Don't know if he's worth an article here or not, but it may be worth mentioning that neither of these JEs are him. Tsumetai 10:17, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

Hi. Smallpox vaccination, which involves the administration of attenuated live virus, (and has well-recognized dangers) was not in use at this time. Smallpox itself killed millions...the first successful preventative strategy, other than isolation, was innoculation, which involved taking material from the pox of an ill patient, and injecting it into the skin of a healthy patient. One of the first successful human trials was done on this, and used actual statistics. Unfortunately, it was done on prisoners and orphans. It did, however, provide decent protection, but there was, by today's standards, a very high rate of illness and death (lower than the rate of smallpox, though, during epidemic times).

Eventually, vaccination was developed, which was actually more of a form of innoculation, as modern genetics had not yet been developed. An attenuated live virus (of Cowpox, not smallpox) was used. This had a much lower rate of complications than using smallpox itself, but still could lead to serious illness, especially in young or unhealthy people exposed to the virus, or to those recently vaccinated.

I'd be happy to share more, if anyone is interested. Palmd001 14:52, 23 March 2007 (EDT)

Hi. I removed quote from Benjamin Franklin's Autobiograpghy because that passage refers to George Whitefield, not Edwards. See pages 104-108 of Franklin's autobio http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=Fra2Aut.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=all

While Edwards wrote the material for A Faithful Narrative of the Surprizing Work of God, he did not have it published himself. He wrote of it in a response to a letter from Benjamin Coleman, one of Boston's senior ministers, and Coleman passed on part of the reply to Doctors John Guyse and Isaac Watts. Watts's London congregation wanted more news of the revival, so Guyse wrote back to Coleman, who wrote to Edwards's Uncle, William Williams, for more information. Edwards wrote Coleman a much longer letter, which Coleman abridged and had printed as an appendix to a book of sermons by William Williams, Edwards's uncle. Coleman said, "Mr. Edwards is no altogether pleased with the liberty we have taken of so general an extract." The book was published in London in 1737. It was apparently the first printed news of the Great Awakening. AJ4JQ 14:55, 22 September 2009 (EDT)