vaccination
Saved American Army in Revolutionary War
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Two reports on the Chinese practice were received by the Royal Society in London in 1700; one by Dr. Martin Lister who received a report by an employee of the East India Company stationed in China and another by Clopton Havers. But no action was taken.[6]
Circassia[]
According to Voltaire (1742), the Turks derived their use of inoculation to neighbouring Circassia.
The Circassian women have, from time immemorial, communicated the small-pox to their children when not above six months old by making an incision in the arm, and by putting into this incision a pustule, taken carefully from the body of another child. This pustule produces the same effect in the arm it is laid in as yeast in a piece of dough; it ferments, and diffuses through the whole mass of blood the qualities with which it is impregnated. The pustules of the child in whom the artificial small-pox has been thus inoculated are employed to communicate the same distemper to others. There is an almost perpetual circulation of it in Circassia; and when unhappily the small-pox has quite left the country, the inhabitants of it are in as great trouble and perplexity as other nations when their harvest has fallen short...The Circassians are poor, and their daughters are beautiful, and indeed, it is in them they chiefly trade. They furnish with beauties the seraglios of the Turkish Sultan, of the Persian Sophy, and of all those who are wealthy enough to purchase and maintain such precious merchandise.[7]
Voltaire does not speculate on where the Circassians derived their technique from, though he reports that the Chinese have practiced it "these hundred years". The Turkish practice was presented to the Royal Society in 1714 and 1716, when the physicians Emanuel Timoni[8] and Giacomo Pylarini independently sent letters from Constantinople.[9]
India
Variolation is documented in India from the eighteenth century, thanks to the 1767 account by J. Z. Holwell.[10] Holwell's extensive 1767 description that points to the connection between disease and "multitudes of imperceptible animalculae floating in the atmosphere."
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Ethiopia[]
Early travellers to Ethiopia report that variolation was practiced by the Amhara and Tigray peoples. The first European to report this was Nathaniel Pearce, who noted in 1831, that it was performed by a debtera who would collect "a quantity of matter" from a person with the most sores from smallpox, then he "cuts a small cross with a razor in the arm" of his subject and put "a little of the matter" into the cut which was afterwards bound up with a bandage. Subsequent visitors who described this practice included W.C. Harris and Dr. Petit of the French scientific mission of 1839-1841.[16]
West Africa[]
The knowledge of inoculating oneself against smallpox seems to have been known to West Africans, more specifically the Akan. A slave named Onesimus explained the inoculation procedure to Cotton Mather during the 18th century, he reported to have gotten the knowledge from Africa.[17]
Importation to the West[]
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Mary Wortley Montagu, byCharles Jervas, after 1716
In January 1714 Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society published an account of a letter John Woodward had received from Emanuel Timonius in Constantinople.[18] Smallpox inoculation was advocated as a proven method of curbing the severity of the disease.
The practice was introduced to England by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Lady Montagu's husband, Edward Wortley Montagu, served as the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1716 to 1718. She witnessed firsthand the Turkish use of inoculation in Istanbul,[19] and was greatly impressed:[20] she had lost a brother to smallpox and bore facial scars from the disease herself. When a smallpox epidemic threatened England in 1721, she called on her physician to inoculate her daughter. She invited friends to see her daughter, including Sir Hans Sloane, the King's physician. Sufficient interest arose that Maitland gained permission to test inoculation at Newgate prison in exchange for their freedom on six prisoners due to be hanged, an experiment which was witnessed by a number of notable doctors.[21] All survived, and in 1722 the Prince of Wales'daughters received inoculations.[22]
The practice of inoculation slowly spread amongst the royal families of Europe, usually followed by more general adoption amongst the people.
The practice is documented in America as early as 1721, when Zabdiel Boylston, at the urging of Cotton Mather, successfully inoculated two slaves and his own son. Mather, a prominent Boston minister, had heard a description of the African practice of inoculation from his Sudanese slave, Onesimus, in 1706, and later from Timoni's report to the Royal Society,[23] but had been previously unable to convince local physicians to attempt the procedure.[24] Following this initial success, Boylston began performing inoculations throughout Boston, despite much controversy and at least one attempt upon his life. The effectiveness of the procedure was proven when, of the nearly three hundred people Boylston inoculated during the outbreak, only six died, whereas the mortality rate among those who contracted the disease naturally was one in six.[25] Boylston traveled to London in 1724. There he published his results and was elected to the Royal Society in 1726.
Inoculation grew in popularity in Europe through the 18th century. Given the high prevalence and often severe consequences of smallpox in Europe in the 18th century (according to Voltaire, there was a 60% incidence of first infection, a 20% mortality rate, and a 20% incidence of severe scarring),[28] many parents felt that the benefits of inoculation outweighed the risks and so inoculated their children.[29]In France, considerable opposition arose to the introduction of inoculation, and it was banned by the Parlement. Voltaire, in his Lettres Philosophiques, wrote a criticism of his countrymen for being opposed to inoculation and having so little regard for the welfare of their children, concluding that "had inoculation been practised in France it would have saved the lives of thousands.".[27]
Bibliography:
Additional resources:
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Vaccines By HOWARD MARKEL, M.D. February 28, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/01/health/01smallpox.html?_r=0&pagewanted=print