The Empress and the English Doctor

Abstract

The entry points were covered with pieces of walnut shell, a mild form of smallpox came next, usually characterised by a handful of pustules and a bit of fever, and then permanent immunity. “Nettleton's direct comparison of death rates seems unremarkable today, yet it represented a landmark in the history of medicine”, Ward points out. [...]Ward's book is also a story of how the values of enquiry and empiricism transformed medicine, leading in time to possibly the greatest public health triumph of all: the eradication of smallpox.