Early Inoculation

[LinnetLegs]

Look at this fabulous entry from the parish burials for Bromsberrow. The vicar kept a gold mine of information. I found my direct ancestor died in child birth and her brother died from TB but also served in the army.

Text reads:
Mary, the Wife of John Hardman, was buried December the thirteenth, aged 44, and on the twenty-fifth of the same Month John Hardman was also buried, aged near 50 years.

Mem: This worthy Couple fell a sacrifice to their prejudices against Inoculation for the small-pox, having died of that disorder caught in the natural way: the circumstance is here mentioned, as a warning to others not to commit a similar error. Four of their Children were at the same time afflicted with this malady, and the two Sons narrowly escaped the same fate.

This was a year before Edward Jenner discovered the safer "vaccination" using cowpox in 1796!!!

I think if this vicar was alive today, he would be interested in genealogy....

 

[Daft Bat]

What a wonderful - yet sad - discovery.

 

[Bay Horse]

I think if this vicar was alive today, he would be interested in genealogy....

I wonder if these people, who left such messages, were mindful that one day their notes would be invaluable to historians. The best I have encountered was on a baptism - 'She said he was her husband but he wasn't!' - which didn't have the same historical interest as LinnetLegs' vicar but at least stopped me trawling for a marriage record that didn't exist.

 

[janetbooth]

My 4th great aunt Ann FRANKLIN of Blockley, Worcestershire died aged 11 in 1784 of Smallpox as a result of the innoculation according to the parish register - so sad.

Janet

 

[gillyflower]

That is so interesting and informative. I wish all records were the same.

 

[Auburn]

My father contracted smallpox at a jungle training school in India in 1944. Not the best place for it- but he got through and got back home.

His own father was not vaccinated according to his WW1 record.

I later discovered that dad's maternal ancestors came from Berkeley where Edward Jenner conducted his experiments! Somewhat ironic!

 

[Archie's Mum]

A badge of honour when I was a child was the smallpox inoculation scar on the arm and the piece of paper that said you were now an Australian. Natural born Aussies had neither.

 

[Ma-dotcom]

My 4th great aunt Ann FRANKLIN of Blockley, Worcestershire died aged 11 in 1784 of Smallpox as a result of the innoculation according to the parish register - so sad.

Janet

I recently read of early vaccines not always working until the man who developed the vaccine went back & improved something there-in. I have a feeling it was from research material in a Nathan Dylan Goodwin novel I'm reading [or was]. Can't now swear to it having been 'small pox though.

 

[mikejee]

I wonder if these people, who left such messages, were mindful that one day their notes would be invaluable to historians. The best I have encountered was on a baptism - 'She said he was her husband but he wasn't!' - which didn't have the same historical interest as LinnetLegs' vicar but at least stopped me trawling for a marriage record that didn't exist.

Are you sure she meant that she was not married, or that he had not done the things husbands should to produce children?