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A 1787 Letter From Catherine the Great Urging Mass Immunization Sells at Auction
MSN ^ | Gillian Brockell

Posted on 12/01/2021 2:53:40 PM PST by nickcarraway

A letter from Catherine the Great supporting mass immunization against smallpox sold at auction Wednesday in London. In the letter, dated April 20, 1787, the Russian empress instructs a governor-general of what is now Ukraine to make immunizing the public a priority and says that “such inoculation should be common everywhere.”

Grandma Loves Me To The Moon And Back Casual Crew Neck Shirts & Tops White/XXL The letter sold at the MacDougall’s auction house along with a portrait of the empress painted by Dmitry Levitsky, for a total of ₤951,000. MacDougall’s said the letter reveals “the statecraft and foresight shown by the great monarch.”

It also shows her struggle against fear and misinformation about immunization among the public. Nearly two decades before the letter was written, she had become the first person in Russia to be immunized against smallpox, yet millions of Russians still feared the procedure.

(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...


TOPICS: Books/Literature; Health/Medicine; History
KEYWORDS: catherinethegreat; godsgravesglyphs; immunization; russia; smallpox; vaccines
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To: nickcarraway

Were horses involved?...


21 posted on 12/01/2021 3:52:31 PM PST by EEGator
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To: nickcarraway; All
Thanks for referencing that article nickcarraway.

Very interesting. And if I'm reading this other reference correctly, it suggests that smallpox vaccine was developed / discovered in 1796.

Smallpox vaccine

On the other hand, when George Washington took over the Continental Army in 1775, he seems to have beat Catherine the Great to vaccine greatness by allegedly using vaccine to fight smallpox among the troops.

Rep. Thomas Massie: George Washington understood natural immunity (9.13.21)

But regardless when smallpox vaccine became available, unlike computer model experimental CV19 “vaccines,” smallpox vaccine had been in use at least 100 years before Supreme Court sided with a state for the administration of smallpox vaccines in Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 1905.

Jacobson v. Massachusetts

Finally, I wonder if medical history would have turned out better if vitamin D3 had been discovered before vaccines were.

Corrections, insights welcome.

22 posted on 12/01/2021 4:14:14 PM PST by Amendment10
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To: the OlLine Rebel

And Covid has much less than a 1% death rate for people under the age of 60.


23 posted on 12/01/2021 4:19:38 PM PST by Freee-dame
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To: Freee-dame
Smallpox in 1787 had a far greater potential for causing death than does Covid in 2021.

So did "variolation" the method Washington used to inoculate his troops.

How Crude Smallpox Inoculations Helped George Washington Win the War

But immunization in the 1770s was not what it’s like today with a single injection and a low risk of mild symptoms. Edward Jenner didn’t even develop his revolutionary cowpox-based vaccine for smallpox until 1796. The best inoculation technique at Washington’s disposal during the Revolutionary War was a nasty and sometimes fatal method called “variolation.”

“An inoculation doctor would cut an incision in the flesh of the person being inoculated and implant a thread laced with live pustular matter (of smallpox) into the wound,” explains Fenn. “The hope and intent was for the person to come down with smallpox. When smallpox was conveyed in that fashion, it was usually a milder case than it was when it was contracted in the natural way.”

Variolization still had a case fatality rate of 5 to 10 percent. And even if all went well, inoculated patients still needed a month to recover. The procedure was not only risky for the individual patient, but for the surrounding population. An inoculee with a mild case might feel well enough to walk around town, infecting countless others with potentially more serious infections.


24 posted on 12/01/2021 4:19:46 PM PST by TigersEye (Ray Epps didn't kill himself.)
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To: shadowlands1960; the OlLine Rebel
Edward Jenner didn't invent his cowpox vaccine until 1796. Too late for General Washington and his troops.

Edward Jenner and the history of smallpox and vaccination

While Jenner's interest in the protective effects of cowpox began during his apprenticeship with George Harwicke, it was 1796 before he made the first step in the long process whereby smallpox, the scourge of mankind, would be totally eradicated. For many years, he had heard the tales that dairymaids were protected from smallpox naturally after having suffered from cowpox. Pondering this, Jenner concluded that cowpox not only protected against smallpox but also could be transmitted from one person to another as a deliberate mechanism of protection. In May 1796, Edward Jenner found a young dairymaid, Sarah Nelms, who had fresh cowpox lesions on her hands and arms (Figure ​(Figure33). On May 14, 1796, using matter from Nelms' lesions, he inoculated an 8-year-old boy, James Phipps. Subsequently, the boy developed mild fever and discomfort in the axillae. Nine days after the procedure he felt cold and had lost his appetite, but on the next day he was much better. In July 1796, Jenner inoculated the boy again, this time with matter from a fresh smallpox lesion. No disease developed, and Jenner concluded that protection was complete.


25 posted on 12/01/2021 4:26:17 PM PST by TigersEye (Ray Epps didn't kill himself.)
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To: Bishop_Malachi

It existed in 1777.


26 posted on 12/01/2021 4:31:19 PM PST by one guy in new jersey
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To: TigersEye

The fatality rate sounds like a total lie.

In any event I don’t believe it.

The cases were mild because there were known at the time to be at least two strains of the virus, one of which was mild. That’s the one, through the pustules of which they would draw the thread that would later be placed under the skin of the healthy person (often a Continental Army recruit) to have them get mildly sick and recover in two weeks.


27 posted on 12/01/2021 4:36:28 PM PST by one guy in new jersey
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To: TigersEye

Yes, Edward Jenner himself was inoculated in 1757.. he was 8 years old. This was the earlier variolation technique with actual smallpox.. not the cowpox that was developed later by Jenner as a vaccine.. the history is here:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1200696/


28 posted on 12/01/2021 4:42:30 PM PST by shadowlands1960 ("...some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again... " CSL)
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To: the OlLine Rebel

Insane with a triple dose of 🤡🌎.


29 posted on 12/01/2021 4:43:20 PM PST by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est)
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To: TigersEye

Sorry if I get things messed up. And I’m not concerned too much about the precise definition of vax vs innoc vs immun. Etc.

But Washington DID indeed get as much of the armies inoculated. May not have been Jenner’s but the point is it did happen and this smallpox immunity stuff was really percolating at that time.


30 posted on 12/01/2021 4:49:11 PM PST by the OlLine Rebel (Common sense is an uncommon virtue./Federal-run medical care is as good as state-run DMVs.)
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To: shadowlands1960

Thanks. That’s the same link I used.


31 posted on 12/01/2021 4:51:15 PM PST by TigersEye (Ray Epps didn't kill himself.)
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To: TigersEye

Interesting.

Yet, given the “major” strain of smallpox has a CFR about 30%, that might’ve been a risk to take.

John Adams did it too.


32 posted on 12/01/2021 4:53:17 PM PST by the OlLine Rebel (Common sense is an uncommon virtue./Federal-run medical care is as good as state-run DMVs.)
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To: one guy in new jersey
The cases were mild because there were known at the time to be at least two strains of the virus, one of which was mild. That’s the one, through the pustules of which they would draw the thread that would later be placed under the skin of the healthy person (often a Continental Army recruit) to have them get mildly sick and recover in two weeks.

Please provide a link to that information.

33 posted on 12/01/2021 4:55:56 PM PST by TigersEye (Ray Epps didn't kill himself.)
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To: the OlLine Rebel

It was a long long way from a 98.9% survival rate.


34 posted on 12/01/2021 4:57:33 PM PST by TigersEye (Ray Epps didn't kill himself.)
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To: TigersEye

Sorry about that.. I’ve got to start being more attentive. I did find it interesting that Jenner had been vaccinated for smallpox as a child though.


35 posted on 12/01/2021 5:09:36 PM PST by shadowlands1960 ("...some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again... " CSL)
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To: shadowlands1960

Not to beat the subject into the ground but, originally you stated that “the first patient was inoculated in 1757.” It also seemed you were saying that first patient was Edward Jenner.

But the article we both linked to states he was one of thousands of children inoculated in England that summer. And the practice went back hundreds of years, first introduced in Europe in 1670.


36 posted on 12/01/2021 5:20:43 PM PST by TigersEye (Ray Epps didn't kill himself.)
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To: TigersEye

One or more of these three I think. Sorry can’t be more specific at this point.

These three are all absolutely splendid authors.

Washington himself contracted smallpox as a young man when he visited the Carribean with his older half brother Lawrence. Recovered well enough but had some persistent scarring on his face thereafter. Obviously he believed in natural immunity.

1.
Washington: A Life
by Ron Chernow

2.
1776
by David McCullough

3.
His Excellency: George Washington
by Joseph J. Ellis


37 posted on 12/01/2021 5:23:51 PM PST by one guy in new jersey
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To: TigersEye

Yes, I scanned the blurb from the Google results and misread it. The paragraph was referring to Jenner’s inoculation.not ‘the first’ one.


38 posted on 12/01/2021 5:24:39 PM PST by shadowlands1960 ("...some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again... " CSL)
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To: the OlLine Rebel

“John Adams did it too.”

__________

Indeed he did. Wisely do. Was not a happy camper. Wrote to Abigail from quarantine to complain. The old cannonball was back in fighting shape soon enough.


39 posted on 12/01/2021 5:27:05 PM PST by one guy in new jersey
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To: TigersEye

I should have known better because I knew that one of Queen Anne’s children (none out of over a dozen survived) had been inoculated... that would have been in the late 17th century.


40 posted on 12/01/2021 5:27:45 PM PST by shadowlands1960 ("...some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again... " CSL)
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