Knowledge Bank

The eradication of smallpox is one of public health's greatest accomplishments. While the road to eradication was arduous, a number of key players made it possible. Despite public health historians arguing that the concept of a public health movement came about during the industrial period, this case-study seeks to argue that the actions of the women of the English court during the early eighteenth-century constitute an example of a public health movement, almost a century earlier than scholars argue these movements can be identified. Using correspondence, accounts, and newspapers from the early modern period, this essay analyzes the introduction of inoculation to England and its subsequent impact.