The Speckled Monster: A Historical Tale of Battling Smallpox
Categories: Biographies & Memoirs
The Speckled Monster: A Historical Tale of Battling Smallpox is a 2003 work of narrative history by Jennifer Lee Carrell, published by Dutton, about the first efforts to protect people from one of history's deadliest diseases. In 1721, two survivors of smallpox fought to introduce inoculation to the West: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who learned of the practice in Ottoman Turkey and promoted it in London, and Dr. Zabdiel Boylston, who tried it during an epidemic in Boston, both facing fierce opposition, fear and public hostility.
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- Margaret Atwood: “The Speckled Monster: A Historical Tale of Battling Smallpox by Jennifer Lee Carrell. Fascinating, and so timely – including the impulse to hang the advocates of inoculation (later to become vaccination).”