The Speckled Monster
May 16, 2009 by New Age Healing · Leave a Comment
Long before vaccination for smallpox was developed in Europe in the 1790s, people in the Middle East, the Caucasus and Africa knew that small amounts of live smallpox virus injected under the skin would induce a mild form of the disease that rendered a person immune from full-blown smallpox. In her intriguing book, Carrell, a writer for Smithsonian magazine, switches between the stories of two courageous people in early 18th-century England and America who believed passionately in this procedure, called variolation. While living in Turkey, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, herself disfigured by the disease, had her son inoculated. When she convinced her physician to inoculate her daughter during a smallpox epidemic in London in 1721, public opinion was vehemently against her but, after the procedure appeared to work, physicians persuaded King George I to let them experiment on prisoners who agreed to submit to variolation in return for pardons. In Boston, also ravaged by smallpox in 1721, Zabdiel Boylston, a physician who had survived the disease, learned of variolation from slaves and successfully inoculated his own children. The authorities ordered Boylston to stop the practice, and outraged citizens even tried to kill him, but he persisted, encouraged by a few believers, including the influential Puritan clergyman Cotton Mather. In Boston, as in London, most people who underwent the procedure didn’t get full-blown cases of smallpox, and variolation was finally accepted as the only way to protect against the disease before vaccination with cowpox, a benign virus, was developed in the 1790s. Carrell’s novelistic treatment of this story, which concludes with an account of the friendship that developed between Lady Mary and Boylston when he visited London in 1725, is engaging in spite of an overabundance of fabricated conversations and scenes that slow the action.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
User Ratings and Reviews
2 Stars Enjoyed what I could.
I downloaded the sample to my Kindle. The first quarter of the sample is the intro. etc. I found the rest of it very interesting and would have loved to finish the book, however I refuse to pay full price for a Kindle edition when the hard copy is a bargain book!
5 Stars Fascinating
I found this book to be informative and engaging from the beginning. I had to keep asking myself if it was fiction or not, and in many instances the writing just pulled me into the scenery. I enjoyed the archaic letters and the use of documentation to add verisimilitude to the story. Whether all the events occurred as written here is immaterial to enjoying the text, because we’ll never know and what remains is that they could have happened more or less along the lines of Dr. Carrell’s story.
Some scenes were particularly riveting - especially after Boylston is ordered to cease the innoculations and his family is endangered. Equally catching is the tense and tight prose that follows Lady Mary on her secret missions to fight smallpox.
This book seems to cross the boundaries between fiction and creative non-fiction, but to me it was very satisfying and difficult to put down.
5 Stars Top Notch History and Great Read
In The Speckled Monster, Carrell has written both an enlightening and entertaining account of the introduction of smallpox inoculation in both Europe and the United States. She conveys the profoundly devastating effect that this disease has had on world history. Through her delightful portrayal of the human actors in the struggle to bring inoculation to Western countries, Carrell delivers a fascinating and enjoyable read.
5 Stars Couldn’t put it down
Maybe it’s because I have a degree in both history and English, but this book suited my taste perfectly, and I was surprised at the negative reviews. I picked up the book and finished it in two days because I couldn’t put it down. Ms. Carrell has made the tale read like a historical whodunit. I read her chapter, then her endnotes. If you like historical fiction and you also like historical nonfiction, I think you would enjoy this book.
4 Stars medicine vs politics
Not since Laurie Garret’s THE COMING PLAGUE have I enjoyed a book more. The detail of the research is tremendous and the story it tells– of a medical breakthrough for the western world despite politics, racism and ignorance is fascinating. It is so easy to lose sight of the true terror caused by this disease. Carrell’s work brings it to life.
