Lady Mary Wortley Montagu: Heroic story of 'pioneer of preventative medicine' marked with plaque

Seventy years before Edward Jenner began vaccination against smallpox, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu defied convention by introducing the practice to Western medicine after witnessing it during her visits to the Ottoman Empire.

A blue plaque was unveiled this weekend recognising the “pioneer of preventative medicine” and her “saving of countless lives” – smallpox killed at least one in three people infected – at the Long Barn at Wentworth Castle Gardens near Barnsley.

In the grounds visitors can see the obelisk erected by Thomas Wentworth in 1762 in honour of her efforts. It is believed to be the country’s oldest monument dedicated to a non-royal woman.

While in Constantinople, or Istanbul as it’s now known, Lady Mary visited a hammam or bath house. It was here that she noticed the “perfect skin” of the women within, unscarred, as she was, by smallpox.

Four years earlier, in 1713, her only brother died from smallpox, aged 20. Two years later she had also contracted the disease, but recovered, against expectations.

Lady Mary was invited to an “inoculation party”, where a small amount of mild smallpox matter was applied, via a needle, to a scratch on a child’s arm. The child went on to develop slight symptoms whilst gaining lifelong immunity. Lady Mary then had her own four-year-old son inoculated and enthusiastically spread the word back home – despite resistance from the medical community to what was a folk treatment.

When another epidemic struck she had her three-year-old daughter successfully inoculated and publicised the event. Her actions were met with “bitter hostility, including physical violence”.

Inoculation resulted in a small number of deaths and serious infections. Jenner later demonstrated his much safer technique of vaccination using cowpox in 1796. The World Health Organisation finally declared smallpox officially eradicated in 1980.

The plaque was installed with support from the Royal Society of Biology and the British Society for Immunology.