The mortality from smallpox in Russia seems to have been still
higher than in the rest of Europe. The annual average death
rate on the Continent at the end of the eighteenth century was
210 per 1,000 deaths from all causes, while in Russia in one
year two million persons perished from smallpox alone. In
England in 1796, the deaths from smallpox were 18.6 per cent.
of deaths from all causes.

A great impetus was given to inoculation in England by the
letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montague, the wife of our
ambassador to Turkey, Edward Wortley Montague, and daughter of
the Duke of Kingston. In 1717 Lady Mary wrote a letter to her
friend Miss Chiswell, in which she explained the process and
promised to introduce it to the notice of the English
physicians. So convinced was Lady Mary of the safety of
smallpox inoculation and its efficacy in preserving from
subsequent smallpox, that in March, 1717, she had her little
boy inoculated at the English embassy by an old Greek woman in
the presence of Dr. Maitland, surgeon to the embassy. In 1722
some criminals under sentence of death in Newgate were offered
a full pardon if they would undergo inoculation. Six men agreed
to this, and none of them suffered at all severely from the
inoculated smallpox. Towards the close of the same year two
children of the Princess of Wales were successfully inoculated;
and in 1746 an Inoculation Hospital was actually opened in
London, but not without much opposition. As early as 1721 the
Rev. Cotton Mather, of Boston (U. S. A.), introduced
inoculation to the notice of the American physicians, and in
1722 Dr. Boylston, of Brooklyn, inoculated 247 persons, of whom
about 2 per cent. died of the acquired smallpox as compared