Melvyn Bragg and guest explore the history of ideas. Thursday 9.00-9.45am, repeated 9.30pm. Please note: there have been problems with the mp3 and podcast versions this week. We hope that the Goethe download will be available on Tuesday. Apologies again.
In 1717, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, the wife of the British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, wrote a letter to her friend describing how she had witnessed the practice of smallpox inoculation in Constantinople. This involved the transfer of material from a smallpox postule into multiple cuts made in a vein. Lady Montagu had lost her brother to smallpox and was amazed that the Middle Eastern practice of inoculation rendered the fatal disease harmless. In Britain, the practice was unknown.
Inoculation was an early attempt at creating immunity to disease, but was later dismissed when Edward Jenner pioneered immunisation through vaccination in 1796. Vaccination was hailed a huge success. Napoleon described it as the greatest gift to mankind, but it met unexpected opposition after it was made compulsory in Britain in 1853.
How did a Gloucestershire country surgeon become known as the father of vaccination? Why did the British government introduce compulsory smallpox vaccination in 1853? What were the consequences of those who opposed it? And how was the disease finally eradicated?
Contributors
Nadja Durbach, Associate Professor of History at the University of Utah
Chris Dye, Co-ordinator of the World Health Organisation's work on tuberculosis epidemiology
Sanjoy Bhattacharya, Lecturer in the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL
