Early on during the pandemic I learnt about Mary Wortley Montagu, who pioneered variolation in England (inoculating her own son) after observing the practice in Turkey. This was almost 80 years before Edward Jenner, who I have always been taught was the ‘inventor’ of the cowpox vaccine. Yet another case of women being overlooked or deliberately written out of the history of science.
It was too late to include her in the Massive Science Tarot, but I decided to draw her portrait nonetheless. Dan Samorodnitsky wrote her story for Massive. Unfortunately, her views on slavery were not as enlightened, but I still hope she can provides some hope in these difficult times. May we defeat COVID soon and get back to fighting more important battles.
