Week 3--Cameron Ormsby--Primary Source

I have decided to write my paper on smallpox inoculations in the 18^th century, using Baron Thomas Dimsdale as a jumping off point. He was an articulate and zealous defender of the inoculations and published a number of texts on the subject. Many of these are scientific in nature, but he also published two texts that he wrote during his time in St. Petersburg at the request of Catherine the Great. There is also an excellent account of his second trip to Russia written by his wife that focuses less on the scientific aspects and more on the day to day logistics of their travels. I’d tentatively like to start with an introductory biographical sketch of Thomas Dimsdale. and then move into the debate surrounding smallpox inoculations. There were a number of religious qualms, fears about the dangers that it posed, and scientific debates over when in the year an inoculations should be administered and how old children had to be before receiving an inoculation. I can draw on a number of primary sources, many of them available online. Dimsdale, for example, published a short book on the subject, which then received a negative review from a Dr. John Lettsom. Dimsdale than published an article in response to that review, and Lettsom retaliated with a second article arguing his point. At this point I want to move to his trips to Russia, and his attempts to popularize the inoculation abroad. I can draw from his texts published in St. Petersburg and his wife’s diary, but I still need to find a couple more sources on this point. Then I’d like to explore how smallpox inoculations were viewed in non-British societies. I have some secondhand accounts of the Russian response from the Dimsdales themselves, but I think realistically it will be easiest to look at the American response. There is no shortage of secondary and primary sources available online and through jstor, and they have the advantage of being in English. The debate in America also closely ties to the American Revolution, because smallpox was a significant threat for General Washington’s troops. There’s an interesting letter from Jonathan Trumbull, the governor of Connecticut and captain-general in the army, complaining about the dangers of inoculation. I’m still trying to figure out how I can tie the debate in America to Dimsdale and his trip to Russia. Ideally, I’d like to find some sources by doctors who had traveled or emigrated to the United States and implemented the small pox inoculation in that society. In an effort to keep my paper closer to our travel theme, I’d also like to use the Russia and America examples as instances where travelers participated in an exchange of knowledge, looking at how smallpox inoculations ‘traveled,’ so to speak. Thoughts?