SOURCE: “Introduction,” in The Angel of Bethesda by Cotton Mather, Barre, Mass.: American Antiquarian Society and Barre Publishers, 1972, pp. xi-xxx.

In the following excerpt, Jones discusses the significance of Cotton Mather's medical writings and traces the influences on his thinking.

Part I

Cotton Mather (1663-1728) represents a landmark in the development of the American mind, the first long step in the series from Benjamin Franklin (whose boyhood studies he encouraged) and Thomas Jefferson to Robert McCormick and Henry Ford. His background was essence of English Puritan. One grandfather was the Reverend John Cotton (1584-1652) of the First Church of Boston, and the other was Richard Mather (1596-1669) of the First Church of Dorchester, Massachusetts. His father, Increase Mather (1639-1723), was minister of the Second Church of Boston, president of Harvard from 1685 to 1701, the author of 175 published works, and, having been sent to England by an alarmed Colony, the...