Heather Friedman
The Speckled Monster: A historical tale of smallpox. Jennifer Lee Carrell
From the dramatic and compelling book The Speckled Monster, a Historical Tale of Battling Smallpox, by Jennifer Lee Carrell, readers at once get a spectacularly entertaining read as well as a rather accurate history of the beginning of the science of immunity. Carrell, a PhD in English and American Literature from Harvard University, intertwines narratives of two unlikely medical heroes, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, an English aristocrat, and Dr. Zabdiel Boylston, a locally trained Boston doctor. Both characters fight tirelessly against “the smallpox,” a terrifying and disfiguring disease that killed more people than the Black Death and all the wars of the 19th century combined. Carrell weaves history and fiction so perfectly into her educational “historical tale,” that it is nearly impossible for the average reader to determine which aspects of the book are a result of her meticulous research, and which are due to her remarkable imagination.
The book primarily follows the stories of Lady Mary and Dr. Boylston throughout their lives in strikingly different political and social positions, as well as on opposite sides of the Atlantic. Lady Mary accompanies her husband, the English ambassador to Turkey, to the Ottomon Empire, and learns of inoculation, the practice of infecting individuals with tiny amounts of the smallpox virus to give them a muted form of the disease, in order to give them permanent immunity. Dr. Boylston learns of the same practice from his African slaves, who utilize the practice very commonly in Africa and the West Indies. Both, disfigured from having previously barely survived the disease and acutely aware of the devastation its perpetual epidemics caused, put enough trust in the success of the practice to inoculate their own children, slaves, and family. This complete disregard for modern European and American medicine wins them few supporters at first, and both are threatened by mobs of angry townspeople and slandered by pamphlets criticizing the practice as “… action perilously close to the definitions of poisoning, and of spreading infection…both acts are, by the penal laws of England, felonies,”[1] as well as offending God, because the thought was that “Smallpox, now, has been recognized for many thousands of years as a divine scourge, revealing the wrath of God Almighty and goading the wicked into repentance.”[2] However, rumors circulate, both in England and in Boston, of the success of the procedure, and soon Lady Mary and Dr. Boylston begin to receive many townspeople secretly begging them for inoculation for themselves and their families. Eventually, the success of the inoculation becomes so apparent that it became a common practice, paving the way for Edward Jenner to develop the world’s first vaccine.
In addition to chronicling the lives of Lady Mary and Dr. Boylston, the book also delves into intricate detail of the different types of smallpox present at the time, the common medical practices used to fight the disease, and the beginning of a scientific method to test the efficacy of the procedure. Carrell describes how the prisoners of Newgate in London were offered immunity for voluntary inoculation, and subsequent exposed to smallpox. The prisoners did not contract smallpox, and the practice of inoculation became standard. This scientific detail serves Carrell very well, as it takes the reader away from the solely novelistic approach to her writing, and brings him or her towards the non-fictional, reality of the history associated with eradicating smallpox.
The book also reveals the changing of opinion, especially in Boston, with regards to the views of the causes of disease. By indicating that some of Dr. Boylston’s most fervent opponents were clergy, and by showing that offense to God was a major argument against the practice of inoculation, Carrell hints that a shift was beginning to take place in thought processes. Scientists began to realize that disease was not God’s way of punishing us, but that it was actually caused by tiny microorganisms, and therefore could be cured. Characters demonstrate their strong religious beliefs by praying to God to be spared of the smallpox, and also their faith in science by requesting inoculation. Throughout the book, readers are struck by the interplay of science and religion, a timelessly relevant argument.
Through the novelistic writing style, Carrell achieves her primary goal; to educate the reader on a historically accurate topic. What she manages to do is to miraculously bring a historical, inspiring story into relevance as a dramatic reading. What seems to be a simple story of two parent’s fight to save their children becomes an educational story about two of public health’s most important heroes. Another goal here is attained: Carrell demonstrates that throughout history, there have been unwitting heroes. The reader is taken through a story in which the unlikeliest of people battled a most terrifying opponent, and won.
Jennifer Lee Carrell, in her book The Speckled Monster: A Historical Tale of Battling Smallpox, paints a wonderfully dramatic picture of the history behind one of our most accepted sciences, that of inoculation and vaccination. Through a novelistic style of writing, she hides her extensive bibliography, and creates a story any reader can enjoy. Her book simultaneously inspires and entertains, entices and educates, all without the reader ever knowing just how much knowledge they are gaining. The Speckled Monster should be required reading for any individual with an interest in public health, infectious disease, or medical history.
[1] Jennifer Lee Carrell, The Speckled Monster: A Historical Tale of Battling Smallpox (New York, Penguin Group, 2003), 228.
[2] Jennifer Lee Carrell, 223.
