really enjoyed this book. Very well researched. Occasionally-the effort to give it immediacy goes a bit far-and the dialogue feels like it does not ring true-but overall the story is so exciting and the characters so interesting that the author carries the day ( )

This incredibly enjoyable book reads like a dramatic novel but is entirely factual save for a few creative liberties. It is the story of two individuals, on opposite sides of the Atlantic, fighting the same battle. Both parts biography and medical history, but written for those who may not enjoy scholarly nonfiction.

"London" focuses on the rise and marriage of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, an intelligent, cultured, head-strong writer of high society. As queens and kings succumb to smallpox, she comes to learn of inoculation or "engrafting" while in Adrianople with her diplomatic husband. Having survived and tragically scarred by smallpox herself, she will bring this radical idea to London - with the help of Scottish Dr. Maitland - by having her own son and daughter inoculated...

"Boston" opens with Dr. Zabdiel Boylston (see my post from March 9), the fire and brimstone Rev. Cotton Mather and his slave Onesimus. In 1721, smallpox enters Boston from the HMS Seahorse, bypassing quarantine laws, and Onesimus becomes instrumental by introducing Mather to the principle of inoculation. Word spreads to Dr. Boylston who inoculates his son Thomas first, then his slave Jack, his young son Jackey, a family friend, then Jack's wife Moll, then his sons John and Zabdiel Jr . All recovered with full immunity but Boylston must navigate an egotistical Dr. William Douglass, the spurrious John Campbell and the mighty Elisha Cooke, who wish to see this "nonsense" stopped.

In the final chapter, Lady Mary attempts to convince a naive court and the King of England himself the importance of inoculation while Dr. Boylston is met with hostility and outright violence from superstitious Bostonians and eventually faces a charge of "attempted murder"... ( )

I've wanted to read this book for ages and ages. Admittedly, I thought it was a typical nonfiction book, so I was surprised to open it and find a narrative that, for all intents and purposes, read like historical fiction--albeit impeccably researched historical fiction. I noticed that other reviewers are pretty split on whether they like this or not, and I'm not entirely sure myself. But this is something that the publishers definitely should have addressed better in the back cover text, which sounds like a typical nonfiction book. Something along the lines of, "spinning the impeccable research of nonfiction with the narrative threads of historical fiction..." (obviously that's a first draft!).

For historical fiction, it's absolutely fantastic for a history lover. We're not limited to the "characters'" points of view, so we get accurate information about statistics and the broader world, without going into the clinical depth of a typical nonfiction book. At the same time, there are detailed historical notes at the end of the book--not footnotes--and there's one for every chapter! They're easily skipped, but they're also easily referenced for nerds like me.

All that said, I did get a bit slowed down by the nonfiction elements in the middle of the book, when Carrell got a bit caught up in detailed descriptions of the comings and goings of individuals on ships in the Boston harbor. It seems as though this would be a perfect place to cut a few "characters" and streamline the narrative.

Even more than a month after finishing this book, I'm astounded that these two stories took place at exactly the same time on different sides of the Atlantic. What are the odds that both London and Boston would embark on inoculation experiments not only in the same year, but in the same summer? Okay, well, actually the timing was probably related to the weather supporting the illness, but still! This book also serves as a fascinating introduction to the history of modern scientific practices: many of the building blogs of the scientific method are there in the experiments conducted.

It's also not hard to draw parallels between early inoculations and today's anti-vaccer movement. In those days, there was a rumor that inoculation caused the plague; today there are rumors that vaccines cause autism, though we have much more evidence from clinical studies now. In both cases, though, there simply was no swaying many of those determined to be afraid of modern medicine.

All in all, a fascinating book and one that I would happily recommend to fans of both historical fiction and nonfiction.


Quote Roundup

69: "Englishmen," [a Turkish woman] informed her companions after inspecting the boned corset, "lock up their wives in little boxes shaped like their bodies." ... European women, they all assured Lady Mary through her interpretess, were to be pitied for being such slaves as to be kept prisoner in their own clothing; no man of the East would dream of such barbarity.
Okay, I just love reading about intercultural interactions like this. No other reason this is here.
Though "interpretess" did bother me. Lady Mary is at a Turkish bath--I think it's safe to use "interpreter" and trust that readers won't be confused about the gender.

78: "I cannot forbear admiring the very great sagacity of the men who first invented this method," [Maitland] said upon one return.
"What makes you think it was men?" asked Lady Mary, raising an eyebrow.
He stopped in his tracks and stared at her. "I--"
"Men do not practice it. Why should they have invented it?"

101: Four short lessons [for a New England doctor]: Do as little as Possible. Be clean. When surgery is absolutely necessary--be decisive, precise, and lighting quick. Above all, take knowledge wherever you find it. By which is father meant pay attention to the Indians. Those who are left.
I would argue that the rules of medicine haven't changed much, though I do think that more attention should be paid to alternative medicinal practices. Alas, they're not moneymakers enough for major companies to sponsor the research.

112: I loved the description from Onesiumus's point of view of a winter New England robbed of color and heat. What an awful way to arrive in a new place without warning! I mean, even given the circumstance of arriving as a slave. At least the heat of the South would have been somewhat familiar.

248: I wish there had been a tad more speculation about why Mather delayed so long with inoculating his children if he was such a staunch supporter of inoculation. Surely he would have understood, if not in quite as many words, that the showmanship involved in inoculating a member of his family would bring positive attention and respect to the practice. Yes, on this page he worries that if it goes wrong, people will be against the practice--but if he was so confident, why worry?
Obviously that's oversimplified, but it's hard to understand how others might reconcile the contrast between Mather's words and actions. Perhaps that hypocrisy is just always been something that people expect of leaders.

335: Absolutely fascinating to read that most of Harvard got on board with inoculation, if informally! I wonder if their history museum touches on that at all.

355: Here we get some comments from England very reminiscent of anti-vaccers:
“Mr. Maitland is grubbing for money and patronage.”
“A new way to murder with impunity!”
“An artificial way of depopulating the whole country.”

391: After receiving good evidence that the British were using smallpox-infected blankets and refugees as an insidious weapon—and knowing the terrible vulnerability of most of his men—George Washington had the entire Continental Army inoculated in 1777. Washington’s own face was already famously scarred from an earlier bout with the disease, contracted on a visit to Barbados in 1751. But Marth had herself inoculated, so that she might visit her husband in the soldiers’ camps with impunity; smallpox parties became popular among Revolutionary women—including Abigail Adams and Mrs. John Hancock.

Quotes from the Notes…

411: I have so much respect for doctors in those days. I hadn’t actually thought about it, but young doctors sometimes [deliberately infected themselves with diseases]. They were otherwise virtually useless in an epidemic. … Before the shields of antisepsis and antibiotics, being a doctor was not for the faint of heart; repeatedly risking “putrid” fevers (typhus and typhoid, not then differentiated), dysentery, and various streptococcal infections, to name just a few of the common killers in colonial New England, required no small dose of courage. At least smallpox only had to be suffered once.


Well, unfortunately I've forgotten why I flagged most of the passages I did, so that's it. Alas! ( )

3 stars: Enjoyed parts of it (note: this is historical fiction *not* nonfiction)

From the back cover: "The Speckled Monster tells the dramatic story of two parents who dared to fight back against smallpox. After barely surviving the agony of smallpox themselves, they flouted eighteenth-century medicine by borrowing folk knowledge from African slaves and Eastern women in frantic bids to protect their children. From their heroic struggles stems the modern science of immunology as well as the vaccinations that remain our only hope should the disease ever be unleashed again. Jennifer Lee Carrell transports readers back to the early eighteenth century to tell the tales of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Dr. Zabdiel Boylston, two iconoclastic figures who helped save London and Boston from the deadliest disease mankind has known"

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I enjoyed parts of this book, but it did not fully engage me. About a quarter way through it felt a bit too "in the person's head" so I did some research, and discovered this was historical fiction. I suppose I should have realized the subtitle "tale" but it was not advertised as such and was hard to discern. The book was well written enough that I spent a night looking on Wikipedia and other websites to understand more about the protagonists. They were both real people, but in this book read a bit too much like fictional heroes - the benevolent slave owner who treated his slave as a trusted comrade, and the ahead of her time woman who brought the Turkish inoculation techniques back to England. They both read a bit too idealized.

Interesting, but as per usual, I'd rather read nonfiction on the topic and something more realistically drawn. What this book did well, was portray the horror of smallpox. Writing this as I am coming out of the COVID19 pandemic, I can say I never felt the true terror like they did around smallpox - a much more insidious disease in a pre-antibiotic time.

Some quotes I liked:

"Her first rebellion was to write. Her second was to learn. And her third was to love."

"Lady Mary did not care to please a man, she meant to please herself." [Great sentiment, but definitely feels false, written for 21st century].

"There is nothing, my boy, to spark compassion like a sojourn in hell."

"He watched her register the implications. Yes, she was a smart one. Much braver in the face of knowledge, he suspected, than drowning in the miasma of ignorance." ( )

Excellent narrative nonfiction that looks at two people: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu of London and Zabadiel Boyston of Boston, both of whom learned about smallpox inoculation. Both of them had survived rough cases and were quite scarred, and knew many who had died of smallpox. She learned about inoculation while on a 1-year posting (for her husband) in Istanbul, where it had been practiced from some time. He learned about it through pamphlets from England that discussed its use in Turkey and Africa.

Lady Mary had her son inoculated, and then encouraged various doctors and others to read about it and learn more. With her personality and connections, she managed to get doctors to run a trial on 6 Newgate prisoners.

Boyston learned about it from Cotton Mather, who received the pamphlets from the Royal Society in London. He then asked his adult slave, and talked to other Africans around Boston and saw their scars. Boyston was the only doctor/apothecary willing to try. As smallpox brought on a ship swept through town, he started by inoculating his youngest son and two slaves. After their recovery, he slowly inoculated others.

Carrell skips back and forth between London and Boston, as Boyston is inoculating desparate people and London doctors are experimenting at the request of the queen. Both learn the others are looking into it. Both have detractors and setbacks (more so Boyston, with no medical degree).

Very well done. Carrell has exceptional sources--Lady Mary herself, Boyston's notes, Cotton Mather, the various doctors in England, newspapers, Royal Society proceedings, and more. Usually I hate it when historians put words into peoples' mouths, but she did a magnificent job and had a lot of their own words to work with. Very readable, and very very interesting! ( )