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Book Review of The Speckled Monster: A Historical Tale of Battling Smallpox

The Speckled Monster: A Historical Tale of Battling Smallpox
reviewed on + 132 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1


A very compelling almost novelistic presentation of the battles of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in London and Dr. Zabdiel Boylston in Boston to persuade the powers that be of the efficacy of smallpox inoculation, standard practice in Turkey and Africa but first unknown and then feared in London and Boston, a first precursor to Jenner's better-known struggle to introduce smallpox vaccination.