Mulry recently completed a project on the introduction of smallpox inoculation into the Anglo Atlantic in the early eighteenth century. The work examines the translation of the term inoculation from the context of fields and gardens to describe the insertion of live virus material into the human body.
Mulry’s new project investigates the writings of English colonial promoters and physicians, particularly the work of individuals who expressed an interest in new materia medica that promised cures for sterility and infertility. Their writings suggest that boosting population strength and labor supply were increasingly a matter of state interest in the late seventeenth century.