A History of England7 Kesä 2021

41. Sex and Sickness

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was an extraordinary woman, both in her personality and in her contribution to the world, specifically in medicine.

This episode looks at both aspects, trying to pick out the complex character behind her image, in particular her possibly ambivalent and certainly far from obvious sexuality.

Then, however, it looks at how she became a leading benefactor to humanity, by introducing to England, and through England to Europe, the life-saving procedure of immunising against smallpox by inoculation with the disease itself. That makes this episode not entirely suitable for anti-vaxxers, especially as it ends with a quick look at how her campaign led to the launching of actual vaccination, as opposed to the variolation she promoted. The anti-vaxxers won't like hearing that the procedure has saved hundreds of millions of lives.

Illustration: William Powell Frith, Alexander Pope is said to have declared his love to Lady Mary, who simply found it uproariously funny, offending him deeply and turning him into an open enemy.
The painting dates from 1852, so it’s a later retrospective and imaginary depiction, but more fun than the contemporary and more serious portraits, which is why I chose it. It’s in the library at Otago, New Zealand, and the image is in the public domain.

Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

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