Voltaire and the politicization of medicine and science

The 17th and 18th centuries witnessed an intellectual movement known as the Enlightenment that made possible future revolutions such as the scientific. No person better characterizes the Enlightenment than Voltaire (1696–1976) who, in his book Philosophical Letters published in 1734, venerated the liberalism of English institutions while criticizing the ancien régime of France. He was convinced that the personal freedom the English enjoyed was responsible for their country's success, pointing to inoculation for smallpox and advances in science as evidence. His choice of smallpox inoculation and science as exemplars of empiricism, which maintained that knowledge is obtained through sensory experience, is revealing as it pinpoints political flashpoints that persist to this day. This paper explores how inoculation and science were employed by Voltaire to advance his political idea of liberty.

'I Think it Highly Necessary to Have it Done Before They Go Out into the World': Inoculation, Responsibility and Patterns of Familial Transmission of Smallpox

This paper examines two research streams. First, it will discuss some contemporary familial perspectives on smallpox inoculation in the eighteenth century. This is followed by a look at the level of provision of the practice in Oxfordshire and some of its contiguous counties. Second, the paper will present some findings on the nature of the transmission of smallpox during local early eighteenth century epidemics in Banbury, Oxfordshire and Aynho, Northamptonshire. Finally, the paper will put forward some conclusions which encompass these two streams.

Epidemics, indigenous communities, and public health in the COVID-19 era: views from smallpox inoculation campaigns in colonial Guatemala

This article explores the tensions between well-intentioned humanitarianism and coercive colonialism during smallpox outbreaks in eighteenth-century Guatemala, when the state extended inoculation programmes to its predominant, culturally diverse Maya communities. Evidence from anti-epidemic campaigns shows public debates broadly comparable to the current COVID-19 crisis: debates about the measurably higher mortality rates for indigenous people and other marginalized groups; debates about the extent of the state’s responsibility for the health of its peoples; and debates on whether or not coercion and violence should be used to ensure compliance with quarantines and public health campaigns. While inoculations provided medical assistance and material help to Maya communities, and resulted in demonstrably lower mortality rates from smallpox, at the same time they functioned as avenues for the expansion of colonial power to intervene in the daily lives of people in those communities, characterized by colonial actors as necessary for their own good, and for the broader public good.

A Suttonian in America

This chapter explores the practice of Suttonian inoculation in America. In Britain, there were not really any challenges to the Suttons' claim of their inoculation method's originality. However, most of those who practised the new method in Britain were members of the Sutton family or practitioners who were credited, having bought the Sutton seal of approval. Not many tried their luck abroad. In particular, there seemed to be little incentive to set up in practice in the American colonies. Smallpox inoculation had been pioneered in Boston in 1721, the same year as the Newgate trial in London. In some of the thirteen counties of colonial America it had been banned altogether, in others it had been practised with considerable success. Why cross the Atlantic for such an unpromising venture? One who did was James Latham, an army sergeant who, before he was posted to Quebec with the threat of revolution growing in the colonies to the south, had got himself accredited as a Suttonian inoculator.

Sutton’s Thunder Stolen

This chapter addresses how Daniel Sutton's success was never properly acknowledged by his rivals, who quietly went about the business of figuring out how he did it while sneering at his lowly origins. The eminent, fully qualified doctors who sought to discover Sutton's secrets rarely mentioned him or his family of inoculators by name. They were invariably referred to as 'a certain family', as if to identify them would be to bestow a dignity on them that they really did not deserve. After all, the Suttons probably had no idea themselves how they had more or less perfected the art of smallpox inoculation. There was no published theory nor any description. A London doctor, Thomas Ruston, concluded in his research that the chief ingredient was calomel. Calomel played an important part in Suttonian inoculation, administered in small doses, the quantity dependent on the age and perceived health of the patient.

From Nature’s Urn to the Insurance Office

This chapter examines probability, which, during the eighteenth century, was customarily interpreted as the calculus of reasonableness for a world of imperfect knowledge. Enlightenment thinkers applied the mathematics of chance to an implausibly rich variety of issues. They used it to demonstrate the rationality of smallpox inoculation, to show how degrees of belief should be apportioned among testimonies of various sorts, and even to establish or preclude the wisdom of belief in biblical miracles. Probabilists also stressed the applicability of their subject to actuarial and demographic matters. Probability calculations based on mortality records had been used increasingly to set rates for life insurance and annuity purchases since Edmond Halley published the first life table in 1693. Mathematicians all over Europe, but especially in the great commercial states, the Netherlands and Great Britain, applied their skill to political arithmetic during the eighteenth century. Meanwhile, some of mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace's most important contributions arose from his work on population estimates and other demographic problems.

Obtaining and Sharing Medical Literature, 1780–1820

The quest for timely medical literature was a concern for elite as well as rural physicians in the United States, as evidenced by comments from Drs. Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia; Benjamin Vaughan of Hallowell, Maine; and Lyman Spalding of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. It was the focus of an 1800 correspondence about the new cowpox (vaccination) between Barker and John G. Coffin of Boston who, in 1823, would found and edit the Boston Medical Intelligencer, precursor to the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, now the New England Journal of Medicine; smallpox inoculation is also discussed. Topics include obtaining and sharing medical books and journals, the importance of both personal correspondence and newspapers for dissemination of medical information, problems with and for booksellers, medical nationalism, and publishing by subscription.

Čaqar Gebši Luvsančültem’s Offering Ritual to the Fire God

Gebši Luvsančültem (1740–1810), born in Čaqar of current Inner Mongolia, authored hundreds of texts on various subjects in Buddhism, and dedicated all his life to the development of Buddhism. In his texts, nomadic Mongolian lifestyle and culture were widely reflected and syncretized with Buddhist rituals. As he was not only a Buddhist scholar but also a famous medical practitioner, Luvsančültem documented smallpox inoculation and other newly spread infectious diseases among Mongols for the first time. Many of his works are also related to the nāga deity and devil’s wickedness, and to treatments for the unhappy spirits. One of the best examples of them is an offering ritual to the fire, which has two versions, written in Tibetan and Mongolian. Interestingly, the fire deity was described differently in these two versions. In the Mongolian version, the fire deity is appeared as a pleasant looking White Old Man whereas in the Tibetan version who is visualized as fierce imaged God with three faces and six armes. In addition, the fire offering ritual was recognized by traditional medical practitioners as one of the last, most effective, and fierce rituals for nāga spirits that are associated with diseases, when other rituals such as water rituals and sacrificial cake offerings do not show efficacy.