Yet this same Maitland, who thus testified of the impotence of inoculation to mitigate and restrain smallpox in Turkey, came to England ready to assert its power to mitigate and restrain! It is difficult to find words of due severity for such impudent inconsistency. We shall see, however, in the course of this wonderful story, how every rule of evidence may be defied in the matter of smallpox, and how it is possible to shut one’s eyes and prophesy in the name of science, and have noise and hardihood accepted for veracity.
FOOTNOTES:
[11] Literary Studies, Vol. i. p. 248.
[12] Born in Yorkshire, 1713.
[13] Account of Inoculating for Smallpox. London, 1722.
[14] A Short Account of Inoculation. London, 1723.
[15] Account of Inoculating for Smallpox, p. 4.
[CHAPTER III.]
MAITLAND’S EXPERIMENTS.
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu returned to England in 1718, but not until 1721 did she fulfil her intention of making war on the doctors, and incurring their resentment for the good of mankind. In the spring of 1721 she commenced action in earnest by the inoculation of her daughter—the infant that it was considered unsafe to “engraft” when at Pera in 1718. In Maitland’s words—