The evening world., 1912-03-18
A WOMAN'S

NE HUNDRED AND NINETY -FOUR YEARS ago to-day
an English woman, wife of the British Ambassador to
Turkey, then living with her infant son at Belgrade, took
. step which has since led to the saving of millions of lives and l.
~cdentally to the exchange Of millions Of hard words. She had the
boy innoculated with the smallpox.
Tho practice, well known in Turkey, was utterly unused and
unfamiliar in Western Europe. In one Of her letters from Adrian.
ops the year before, the lady wrote to q friend in England:
.TAe smalpos. 90 general and so fatal amongst W. 10 (here)
entirely harmless BY the Invention Of migrating. whicA u the
term they ore Il. There 10 a Get Of old romen xho make u
their sSstne" to perform the operation every autumn. In the
month Of September. aheS the greet heat 4 oooted People
a. send to one another to knor " any one has a mind to have tho
smeHpos. They make parties for this purpose. and Then they
are met Commonly ttseen or sixteen tooether) inc old CONAN
comes WtA q nunhen fin Of the matter Of the best sort Of
smaIpos. and asks you whas ve" you please to haze opened.
She Immediately rips open that you Offer to her 10Th a large
seed1e tWAtch Otres you NJ more pain than a common scrasch)
end puts into the ven as much matter as con ne upon the head
Aouop DE Of she'll . . . The children or youno pa.
item" play tpostaer all the rest Of the day and III In pertec.
health xwu the eighth. Then the fever begins to sde them,
and they keep their beds tmo Days. very seldom three.
. 4" eight day' time they as as ~H a. they Uers
Seroo tho operation; and the French Ambassador says pleas
awtIv thet they take the smaupos here BY wav of diversion. a.
they toxic the patcrs In other countries. There 10 NJ example
Of any ore that has died Of II; and you mdy believe M that !
ON ueu sotastied Of the safety Of this experiment, since ! intend
to try q upon nv dear Utne son. ! AN PATRIOT ENOUGH
70 TRY 70 BRING THIS USEFUL INVENTION INTO Fash.
ION IN ENGLAND"
She had her daughter innoculated there. She fought Mortified
medical men. She faced bravely the attacks Of the clergy, who de-
nounced the innovation from the pulpit as "an impious attempt to
take the issues Of life and death out CT the hands Of ProvidenceW3
The common people were taught to hoot at her as an unnatural
mother, until she wrote to her sister: 81 have such a complication
Of things both in my head and my heart that l do not very we'll
know what l do, and if ! cannot settle my brains your next news
Of me will be that ! am locked up by my relations"
Nevertheless, innoculation and its later development, vaccina-
lion, steadily won their way until We find that while in 1871 nearly
eight per cent of the population of Boston died of smallpox, from
1900 to 1910 vaccination so far checked the disease that only
twenty persons died of it in those forty years.
Some time since an English doctor, from the records OF more
than $4,000 cases in the smallpox hospital, calculated that while the
unvaccnated died at the rate Of 81 per cent, the yaccinated died
at the rate of only 61-2 per cent. Well vaccinated persons run
only about 1-7O as much risk Of catching the disease as persons not
vaccnated at all.
The mother of the little boy who, March IS, 1918, was the
first Engishman to be innoculated was Lady Mary wortey Mo l.
tague