Letters on England [19]
pox to his children of both sexes immediately upon their being
weaned.
Some pretend that the Circassians borrowed this custom anciently
from the Arabians; but we shall leave the clearing up of this point
of history to some learned Benedictine, who will not fail to compile
a great many folios on this subject, with the several proofs or
authorities. All I have to say upon it is that, in the beginning of
the reign of King George I., the Lady Wortley Montague, a woman of
as fine a genius, and endued with as great a strength of mind, as
any of her sex in the British Kingdoms, being with her husband, who
was ambassador at the Porte, made no scruple to communicate the
small-pox to an infant of which she was delivered in Constantinople.
The chaplain represented to his lady, but to no purpose, that this
was an unchristian operation, and therefore that it could succeed
with none but infidels. However, it had the most happy effect upon
the son of the Lady Wortley Montague, who, at her return to England,
communicated the experiment to the Princess of Wales, now Queen of
England. It must be confessed that this princess, abstracted from
her crown and titles, was born to encourage the whole circle of
arts, and to do good to mankind. She appears as an amiable
philosopher on the throne, having never let slip one opportunity of
improving the great talents she received from Nature, nor of
exerting her beneficence. It is she who, being informed that a
daughter of Milton was living, but in miserable circumstances,
immediately sent her a considerable present. It is she who protects
the learned Father Courayer. It is she who condescended to attempt
a reconciliation between Dr. Clark and Mr. Leibnitz. The moment
this princess heard of inoculation, she caused an experiment of it
to be made on four criminals sentenced to die, and by that means
preserved their lives doubly; for she not only saved them from the
gallows, but by means of this artificial small-pox prevented their
ever having that distemper in a natural way, with which they would
very probably have been attacked one time or other, and might have
died of in a more advanced age.
The princess being assured of the usefulness of this operation,
caused her own children to be inoculated. A great part of the
kingdom followed her example, and since that time ten thousand
children, at least, of persons of condition owe in this manner their
lives to her Majesty and to the Lady Wortley Montague; and as many
of the fair sex are obliged to them for their beauty.
Upon a general calculation, threescore persons in every hundred have
the small-pox. Of these threescore, twenty die of it in the most
favourable season of life, and as many more wear the disagreeable
remains of it in their faces so long as they live. Thus, a fifth
part of mankind either die or are disfigured by this distemper. But
it does not prove fatal to so much as one among those who are
inoculated in Turkey or in England, unless the patient be infirm, or
would have died had not the experiment been made upon him. Besides,
no one is disfigured, no one has the small-pox a second time, if the
inoculation was perfect. It is therefore certain, that had the lady
of some French ambassador brought this secret from Constantinople to
Paris, the nation would have been for ever obliged to her. Then the
Duke de Villequier, father to the Duke d'Aumont, who enjoys the most
vigorous constitution, and is the healthiest man in France, would
not have been cut off in the flower of his age.
The Prince of Soubise, happy in the finest flush of health, would
not have been snatched away at five-and-twenty, nor the Dauphin,
grandfather to Louis XV., have been laid in his grave in his
fiftieth year. Twenty thousand persons whom the small-pox swept
away at Paris in 1723 would have been alive at this time. But are
not the French fond of life, and is beauty