Wednesday 14th December 2022

Venue: Online

7-8.30pm GMT

“I am going to tell you a thing, that will make you wish yourself here. The small-pox, so fatal and so general amongst us, is here entirely harmless, by the invention of engrafting, which is the term they give it…There is no example of any one that has died in it, and you may believe I am well satisfied of the safety of this experiment, since I intend to try it on my dear little son.”

-Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, to Mrs. S.C., Adrianople, 1st April 1717

For the next in our series of online events alongside the exhibition Trailblazers: Women travel writers and the exchange of knowledge, we explore the life and pioneering scientific advocacy of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689 – 1762). Whilst living in Constantinople in 1717, Montagu observed the local practice of “engrafting”: inoculation against smallpox by introducing a small amount of the vaccine into the bloodstream, bringing on a mild form of the illness and lifetime immunity. Having narrowly survived smallpox herself in 1715, although left with facial scarring and no eyelashes, Montagu wrote back to a friend in England, of “this useful invention” and pledged to have her children inoculated. They became the first British subjects to be protected in this manner against the then-deadly disease. Montagu’s advocacy in the British press – in the face of suspicion and attacks – led to the practice being taken up in the 1720s, paving the way for Edward Jenner’s work on smallpox vaccination 50 years later, and the eventual eradication of the disease worldwide by 1980.

This talk brings together Isobel Grundy, expert and author of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu: Comet of the Enlightenment with Helen McShane, Professor of Vaccinology at Oxford University and Director of the Oxford NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, to explore the development of vaccine science from the 18th century to today.

Their talks will be followed by a Q&A chaired by the Curator of Trailblazers, Emma Yandle, reflecting on the legacy of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s scientific advocacy and the overlooked role of early women pioneers in the history of science, along with questions from the audience.

Tickets £5

Our Speakers: 

Helen McShane is Director of the Oxford NIHR Biomedical Research Centre; Professor of Vaccinology at Oxford University; and Honorary Consultant Physician in Infectious Diseases. She currently holds a Wellcome Trust Investigator Award and was elected to be a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2019.

Since 2001, Helen has led a TB vaccine research group at the University of Oxford, leading the development of MVA85A, the first new TB vaccine candidate to enter efficacy testing. Current areas of focus include the development of controlled human mycobacterial challenge models, aerosol delivery of vaccines and immuno-monitoring in clinical trials. She collaborates with several research groups across Africa in TB vaccine clinical trials. Most recently, she has led the coordination of COVID-19 drug trials within Oxford and nationally, and is now leading a programme to establish a controlled human infection model with SARS CoV2 which will allow the evaluation of protective immunity.

Isobel Grundy is a leading expert on Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, with her landmark work Lady Mary Wortley Montagu: Comet of the Enlightenment (1999), alongside editions of various works by Montagu (including those previously unpublished); and articles such as ‘Medical Advance and Female Fame: Inoculation and its After-Effects’ for Lumen, the journal of the Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies.

She is one of three founding editors (with Patricia Clements and Susan Brown) of Orlando: Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present, an electronic work of literary history published online by Cambridge University Press in 2006, which the team continues to revise and expand twice yearly (orlando.cambridge.org). Isobel is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada; Professor Emeritus at the University of Alberta; and holds her B.A. and D.Phil. from St. Anne’s College, University of Oxford.