Primary Sources Essay

In short, historians viewed primary sources differently than they view secondary sources. In short, “primary sources are defined as sources that were created or written during the time period in which they reference and can include things like diaries, letters, films, interviews, and even results from research studies” (Primary sources, “n.d.”), In contrast, “secondary sources are sources that analyze primary sources in some way and include things like magazine and journal articles that analyze study results, literature, interviews, etc” (Secondary sources, “n.d.”). Therefore, the two images displayed are primary sources because they are photographs of historical accounts. In short, historians can learn that small pox was a major crisis in New England and that the …show more content…
Secondly, the letter illustrates that modern medicines were been used during this time as they were familiar with inoculation. In short, inoculation is defined as the process of introducing an antigenic substance or vaccine into the body to trigger immune response against a specific disease (Inoculation, “n.d.”). So, this illustration shows that the Boston medical physician believe that survivors of small pox were immune to the disease and they believe deliberate introduction of the living small pox virus to provide immunity (The Boston Smallpox Epidemic, 1721, “n.d.”). Therefore, for the government officials to support this practice, that mean inoculation must have been common practice. Furthermore, the image shows that this inoculation process took place in New England and there is no evidence that legislature was been issued in other parts of the country. This means, the local officials of New England were seriously in treating this disease and preventing it to spread across the country, which could impact the lives of