Lady Mary Wortley Montagu: Adventures, Love, Vaccination

There once lived in Britain an English aristocrat - Lady Mary. And who knows how her fate would have turned out if not for a love of books in childhood and a passion for, as it was then considered, a man’s field of study (yes, we were impressed too) — the study of Latin. Perhaps education truly leaves a lasting mark on the human brain and self-confidence, because Mary waved farewell to an arranged fiancé chosen so carefully by her father — a true English marquis — and ran away with her sweetheart Edward Montagu.

Soon after, Edward was appointed English ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, and they traveled to Istanbul together with Mary. While her husband dutifully went to work, the lady did not bore herself; she studied, explored, and described local customs, everyday life, and culture, which formed the basis of her legendary Letters from the Turkish Embassy.

While in Turkey, she deftly used every opportunity, drawing knowledge from what seemed to be a restricted and oppressive “women’s” space. By the way, women of the East also found reasons to regret the women of progressive the West — in one of her companion Margot’s baths, the traces of a corset on her body shocked them, and they unanimously declared that nothing is scarier than the cruel English men who force their women to mistreat their bodies in such a way.

Staying in Istanbul proved fateful not only for the young couple but for all of Britain, for it was there that Mary first witnessed the variolation procedure, long known in the East.

Variolation consisted of introducing infectious material (the crusts or pus from a person already sick with smallpox) into scratches made on the skin, or sometimes into the nasal cavity of a person who had not contracted smallpox. The procedure did cause illness, but in a mild form, after which immunity formed and the body was no longer susceptible to the deadly disease.

For Lady Mary, smallpox was not a mere word, for her brother had died from it. Mary herself also fell ill and endured the disease severely, which took away perhaps what was most dear to some — her feminine beauty — leaving ugly scars on her body for life. Yet it should be said that this did not diminish her appeal to men — thanks to her sharp wit and charisma, Mary always drew crowds of admirers.

Thus, Mary, seeing how the Ottoman Empire protected itself from smallpox, persuaded the embassy’s doctor, secretly from her husband, to perform variolation on her five-year-old son Edward. It should be noted that variolation was far from the modern, thoroughly tested vaccines; mortality from it also occurred, though it did not compare to deaths from the epidemic of smallpox itself.

After returning to London, when the city trembled with the news of a new outbreak of smallpox, three years later the same doctor variolated Lady Mary’s younger daughter. Three physicians of the royal court carefully watched, and later this method was tested on seven felons condemned to death (such were the strict preclinical trials of past centuries; p.s. the prisoners were released for joy). Variolation was taken up by local “leaders of opinion” — the wife of the Prince of Wales, the future Queen Caroline, ordered variolation for her eldest son and two daughters. The royal family's acceptance of variolation led to the procedure’s popularization and spread in Britain, and later beyond. Subsequently, the British physician and politician Thomas Dimsdale traveled to St. Petersburg, where he performed variolation on Empress Catherine the Great of Russia, her son Paul, and 140 leading figures at the imperial court. By the end of the 18th century, variolation had received general approval and was considered one of the most important medical discoveries of the era.

And a little later, Mr. Jenner would use not human smallpox but cowpox for vaccination, making the process as simple and safe as stepping to a manicure.

Mary’s family life was far from Instagram-perfect — her son repeatedly escaped from Westminster School and pestered both parents. And her daughter, perhaps inheriting her mother’s rebellious genes, married a man whom her parents did not approve of. Mary herself, weary of it all, fell in love with an Italian beauty, a Enlightener, writer, and, incidentally, the Count Francesco Algarotti, more than twenty years her junior. After years of wandering with him, Mary, citing health problems and a desire to improve it with the healing climate of the south of France, went to Italy to be with her beloved Francesco, but they could meet only two years later and the romance was short-lived. Mary continued to travel across Europe and corresponded with her daughter on topics of philosophy, literature, and questions of education and the upbringing of girls. A few years later, Mary settled in Italy with another lover, also Italian and considerably younger than her. Upon learning of her husband’s death, she returned to London, where she entrusted her valuable collection of letters into reliable hands; they would later be published as Letters from the Turkish Embassy, and she herself would soon die.

Lady Mary remained famous in science as a kind of Prometheus of vaccination, and in literature as a writer — thanks to her poems, essays, and, of course, Letters from the Turkish Embassy. Much of all this was published during her lifetime. And the Letters from the Turkish Embassy continued to inspire many women to travel and explore new things for a century after her.