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The speckled monster : a historical tale of battling smallpox / Jennifer Lee Carrell.

Van Pelt Library RA644.S6 C37 2003
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Format:
Book
Author/Creator:
Carrell, Jennifer Lee.
Language:
English
Subjects (All):
Smallpox--History--Popular works.
Smallpox.
Smallpox--history.
Smallpox Vaccine--history.
History.
Medical Subjects:
Smallpox--history.
Smallpox Vaccine--history.
Genre:
Popular works.
Physical Description:
xvii, 474 pages : illustrations ; 24cm
Place of Publication:
New York : Dutton, [2003]
Summary:
What is it like to be caught in the terror and chaos of a smallpox epidemic when you and those you love are unprotected? What is it like to get small-pox, or to watch your children battle the disease? The Speckled Monster tells the dramatic story -- both historical and timely -- of two parents who dared to fight back against the disease. After barely surviving the agony of smallpox themselves, they both flouted eighteenth-century European medical tradition by borrowing folk knowledge from African slaves and Eastern women in frantic bids to protect their children. From their heroic struggles stems the modern science of immunology as well as the vaccinations that remain our only hope should the disease ever be unleashed again. Jennifer Lee Carrell transports readers back to the early eighteenth century to tell the tales of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Dr. Zabdiel Boylston: two iconoclastic figures who helped save the cities of London and Boston from the deadliest disease mankind has known.
Contents:
London
Two Marys
Three rebellions
A destroying angel
Bidding the world adieu
A dear little son
Rosebuds in lily skin
Boston
Zabdiel & Jerusha
Curiosities of the smallpox
The beauty of the sea
Caging the demon
Dr. William Douglass
Fathers and sons
Hell upon earth
Salutation alley
Prying multitudes
An infusion of malignant filth
The castle of misery
Signs and wonders
Newgate
An hour of mourning
The King's pardon
Raw head and bloody bones
Just retribution
In royal fashion
Aftermath
Final encounters
The practice
The people.
Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages [465]-474).
ISBN:
0525947361
OCLC:
51336862

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