University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 1990 Pox Britannica: Smallpox Inoculation in Britain, 1721-1830 Deborah Christian Brunton University of Pennsylvania Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the European History Commons, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine Commons, and the Virus Diseases Commons Recommended Citation Brunton, Deborah Christian, "Pox Britannica: Smallpox Inoculation in Britain, 1721-1830" (1990). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 999. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/999 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/999 For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Pox Britannica: Smallpox Inoculation in Britain, 1721-1830 Abstract Inoculation has an important place in the history of medicine: not only was it the first form of preventive medicine but its history spans the so-called eighteenth century 'medical revolution'. A study of the myriad of pamphlets, books and articles on the controversial practice casts new light on these fundamental changes in the medical profession and medical practice. Whereas historians have associated the abandonment of old humoural theories and individualised therapy in favour of standardised techniques with the emergence of new institutions in the second half of the century, inoculation suggests that changes began as early as the 1720s. Though inoculation was initially accompanied by a highly individualised preparation of diet and drugs, more routinised sequences of therapy appeared the 1740s and by the late 1760s all inoculated patients followed exactly the same preparative regimen. This in turn made possible the institutionalised provision of inoculation, first through the system of poor relief, later by dispensaries and charitable societies.