Abby Connolly
That’s when she learned that older women in the community were especially attentive to smallpox and found a way to prevent it.
Mary observed them using the practice of inoculation, when the pus from an infected person’s skin was inserted into the skin of a non-infected person through a small incision, giving that person smallpox to grant them immunity.
Before Mary returned to London in 1718, she insisted that her son be inoculated. He never got the disease.
English medical professionals criticized her for trying to make inoculation a common practice for a multitude of reasons.
To prove to the public and local doctors that inoculation works, she decided to have her second child, a baby girl, inoculated as well.
But this time, she would invite an audience to watch the process and see for themselves that it works.
The public observed each stage of her daughter’s recovery – even the King’s physician witnessed it. Her daughter grew up to be a healthy and prosperous woman.
After seeing how inoculation worked for Mary’s children, people all over her community began demanding that their children be inoculated.
It got to the point where the Princess of Wales asked King George I if the royal children could get the procedure. The King demanded that more testing be done before any royals would be inoculated.
Clinical trials for inoculation began all over England, where it was still proven to work. The King eventually permitted his granddaughters to be inoculated. Afterward, it became a common practice.
When Dr. Edward Jenner invented the official vaccine using cowpox instead of smallpox, Mary’s credit and efforts were somewhat cast aside. Did you ever learn about her in your history classes?
