The Making of Technique in the Arts
View publication
Book Series
Techne
Debating Inoculation in Eighteenth-Century Europe
Yasmine Marcil (ed)
- Pages: 180 p.
- Size:156 x 234 mm
- Language(s):English, French
- Publication Year:2025
- € 85,00 EXCL. VAT RETAIL PRICE
- ISBN: 978-2-503-60129-8
- Hardback
- Forthcoming (Jun/25)
- € 85,00 EXCL. VAT RETAIL PRICE
- ISBN: 978-2-503-60130-4
- E-book
- Forthcoming
*How to pre-order?
This volume uncovers transnational public debates on inoculation against small pox in eighteenth-century Europe, through the lens of periodical press sources
Subject(s)
BIO
Yasmine Marcil specialises in the history of the periodical press and travel literature during the eighteenth century. On this topic, she has published a monograph La fureur des voyages. Les récits de voyage dans la presse périodique (1750-1789), Paris, éditions H. Champion, 2006 and edited a volume La Condamine en Méditerranée : voyages au Levant et en Italie, Paris, SFEDS, 2015. Recently, she has expanded her interests to health issues in journals. She currently serves as maîtresse de conférences at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle.
Summary
Smallpox (known as "variole" or "petite vérole" in French) spread relentlessly across Europe during the eighteenth century, gaining an unprecedented and deadly momentum. While there was no cure for this highly infectious and often fatal disease, those that recovered from it were immune to future infections. This phenomenon informed a practice of inoculation, whereby infectious material was introduced into the body to induce immunity. In Europe, this practice was initially experimented with in England, and it was subsequently adopted across the continent during the eighteenth century. Inoculation was, however, not without controversy—not least because the practice originated outside of Europe—and it became the subject of intense debate. This debate, this volume argues, extended beyond medical circles to include intellectuals and the broader public—a phenomenon driven by a growing periodical press. As books, scientific treatises, and plays crossed regional and national boundaries, debates on inoculation must, this volume shows, be examined within a European, transnational perspective, thereby considering how ideas were shaped by adaptation, translations, and citation. Doing so, this volume not only sheds new light on the history inoculation as a practice, but also illustrates how cultural history can enrich history of medicine
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Yasmine Marcil, Introduction. Inoculation and its Debates in Europe
Huiyi Wu, Débattre de l'inoculation depuis la Chine. Le rapport du Père Dentrecolles, Pékin, 1726
Yasmine Marcil, Les débats publics sur l'inoculation en France. Une mise en question des Lumières?
Giacomo Lorandi, Le débat sur l'inoculation dans la Confédération helévtique au XVIIIème siècle
Andrea Rusnock, ‘It Now Only Rarely Fails of Success’. Smallpox Inoculation In Late-Eighteenth-Century Britain
Elina Maaniitty & Charlotta Wolff, Smallpox Inoculation in Eighteenth-Century Scandinavia. From Pioneering Work Towards Public Consensus
Olga Valkova, Introducing Variolation to the Russian Public Before and After the Experiment of Catherine the Great
Maria Conforti, Italian Variolation Narratives. Historians, Exoticism, and Practitioners
Elena Serrano, Smallpox Inoculation in the Hispanic World and the Circulation of Knowledge. Some Reflections
