
The global history of immunization shows some amazing creativity in terms of documentation. Keeping aside the science and art of discovery to delivery of vaccines, there were numerous people, outside scientific fields, enriched the history with their creativity. Apart from the scientific papers, the history of immunization had been documented by paintings, literature, folk arts, photographs, poetry, and many other forms. For example, Athenian historian and General Thucydides, who scientifically documented the Peloponnesian War (430 BC) and thus the scientific world came to know about the Plague of Athens (430 BC), including the symptoms of the victims during the epidemic. Or for example, the metaphorical connection between the famous rhyme “Ring a Ring o’ Rosie” with the Great Plague of England (1665) as described by noted English folklorists Lona and Peter Opie.
During my current photo research on the global history of immunization, I am encountering such kind of images that are leading to explore some fascinating stories behind immunization. One such image is the above one, a sketch of a tombstone, that I found in the archive of Wellcome Images which they got from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. But that was not my point of interest. I found beside the sketch of tombstone, there is written “An early vaccinator”. After reading the inscription and digging deeper, I found a story worth narrating. Let me allow you to tell the story.
Continue reading “The farmer who first inoculated cowpox (1774)”