The Empress and the English Doctor
How Catherine the Great defied a deadly virus
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3.0 • 1 Rating
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
A TIMES BEST BOOK OF 2022 SO FAR
Shortlisted for the Pushkin House Book Prize 2022
‘Sparkling history…with a fairytale atmosphere of sleigh rides, royal palaces and heroic risk-taking’ The Times
A killer virus…an all-powerful Empress…an encounter cloaked in secrecy…the astonishing true story.
Within living memory, smallpox was a dreaded disease. Over human history it has killed untold millions. Back in the eighteenth century, as epidemics swept Europe, the first rumours emerged of an effective treatment: a mysterious method called inoculation.
But a key problem remained: convincing people to accept the preventative remedy, the forerunner of vaccination. Arguments raged over risks and benefits, and public resistance ran high. As smallpox ravaged her empire and threatened her court, Catherine the Great took the momentous decision to summon the Quaker physician Thomas Dimsdale to St Petersburg to carry out a secret mission that would transform both their lives. Lucy Ward expertly unveils the extraordinary story of Enlightenment ideals, female leadership and the fight to promote science over superstition.
‘A rich and wonderfully urgent work of history’ Tristram Hunt
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Ward debuts with an entertaining account of how a British physician assisted Catherine the Great in an inspired plan to reduce smallpox in Russia while simultaneously strengthening her political power. In 1768, Thomas Dimsdale, a Quaker doctor from Hertford who recently had published a "landmark treatise" on smallpox inoculation, traveled to Russia to inoculate Catherine the Great and her son. A forerunner to vaccination, inoculation, which involved deliberately infecting healthy patients with a controlled dose of the virus, remained controversial and frightening to many Europeans. Though Dimsdale had a "flawless record," the risks were enormous—if Catherine died, the Russian empire might crumble and the cause of science would be set back decades. Drawing on a rich array of primary sources, Ward details how Dimsdale's "close patient observation but light-touch intervention" enabled him to build trust with the empress in the months before the procedure. Elsewhere, Ward evokes the terror wrought by smallpox outbreaks and recounts Catherine's savvy public relations campaign to promote the procedure, which included holding an elaborate Orthodox Church ceremony to give thanks for her successful inoculation and insisting that her infected material be used to inoculate others. Brimming with vivid historical details, this is a memorable account of a medical and social breakthrough.
