Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c6.4

c6.4

Two examples of such lack of comprehension pertain to the practice of inoculation against smallpox, and the use of the drill plough. Till 1720, when the wife of the then British Ambassador in Turkey, having got her children successfully inoculated,¹ began to advocate its introduction into Britain, the practice of inoculation was unknown to the British medical and scientific world. Proving relatively successful, though for a considerable period vehemently opposed² by large sections of the medical profession and the theologians of Oxford, etc., an awareness grew about its value and various medical men engaged themselves in enquiries concerning it in different lands. The two accounts of inoculation reproduced here are a result of this post-1720 quest.