Page "Cotton Mather" Paragraph 43

In the end, lives were saved by inoculation, and the epidemic was halted.

Even today, the procedure is credited with ending the devastation caused by the early epidemics, and vaccination, in many ways an updated and modernized form of the procedure, continues to be recommended by the Centers for Disease Control for at-risk populations, such as potential victims of bioterrorism, and research scientists who work with surviving strains of the virus.