You know, its funny reading this just after reading a brief history of vaccination.
Variolation was invented by some women in Turkey. No one bothered to get their names, they were Turkish and women. There is evidence it was practiced regularly in China and India hundreds of years before that.
It was championed by the wealthy wife of an English diplomat, because the Turks were obviously surviving smallpox a lot better than England was. She was rich and English, so we know her name Lady Mary Wortley Montague.
Several people figured out before Jenner that cowpox killed less and so might be a better thing to dose people with. At least two of those people were women. But in 1796 Jenner used the word 'vaccine' to describe this and therefore invented it.
no subject
Variolation was invented by some women in Turkey. No one bothered to get their names, they were Turkish and women. There is evidence it was practiced regularly in China and India hundreds of years before that.
It was championed by the wealthy wife of an English diplomat, because the Turks were obviously surviving smallpox a lot better than England was. She was rich and English, so we know her name Lady Mary Wortley Montague.
Several people figured out before Jenner that cowpox killed less and so might be a better thing to dose people with. At least two of those people were women. But in 1796 Jenner used the word 'vaccine' to describe this and therefore invented it.