{"id":50905,"date":"2020-03-27T14:51:54","date_gmt":"2020-03-27T21:51:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.creativecircle.com\/?p=50905"},"modified":"2020-03-27T14:51:54","modified_gmt":"2020-03-27T21:51:54","slug":"catherine-the-great-queen-of-the-vaccine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.creativecircle.com\/blog\/catherine-the-great-queen-of-the-vaccine\/","title":{"rendered":"Catherine the Great: Queen of the Vaccine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The hunt is on for a vaccine for the current COVID-19 pandemic \u2014 and vaccination for other diseases is now commonplace. But did you know that Catherine the Great, the famed Tsarina of Russia, was one of the early champions of inoculation?<\/p>\n<p>Catherine the Great is Russia&#8217;s longest-serving female leader in more ways than one. She embraced new medical advancements and was an early endorser of vaccines. When she came to power in 1762, Russia was a poor, struggling country. In 1767, a smallpox epidemic swept Siberia, swiftly killing some 20,000 people. Smallpox was one of the worst diseases in history \u2014 killing nearly 400,000 people every year, 60 million in all \u2014 during the 18th century. (And it is the only human disease that has been <a href=\"https:\/\/ourworldindata.org\/smallpox\">successfully eradicated.<\/a>) The Royal family was no exception \u2014 Catherine\u2019s husband, the emperor Peter III, survived a severe case of smallpox when he was 16, which left him with disfiguring scars and very little hair.<\/p>\n<p>In 1767, wanting to spare Russian lives, Catherine invited Thomas Dimsdale to court. He was a distinguished British physician who had built upon existing knowledge and created an experimental technique to immunize people to smallpox. It involved deliberately infecting a person with fluid from smallpox pustules, taken from a patient with a milder form of the disease, which resulted in a very mild smallpox infection that was less dangerous than if one contracted the disease by natural means, providing immunity to future attacks. He published his findings in a paper titled: <a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books\/about\/The_Present_Method_of_Inoculating_for_th.html?id=JeVEjgEACAAJ\">The present methods of inoculation for the smallpox<\/a> in 1767, which impressed Catherine at a moment when a smallpox epidemic was ravaging Russia.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.historyofvaccines.org\/content\/catherine-great\">She became convinced that she and her 14-year-old son, Paul, should be inoculated<\/a> \u2014 and also wanted to prove to the Russian people that this was a safe and effective procedure. She and her son were quietly inoculated on October 12, 1768. The procedure was a success: Catherine developed a mild case of smallpox after but recovered fully two weeks later. She herself then donated pus for the inoculations of various members of her court. They all survived \u2014 and inoculation quickly became widely accepted. By the end of the century, nearly 2 million Russians had been inoculated against smallpox. Her belief in science saved the lives of millions of Russians, making Catherine quite<\/p>\n<p>Great indeed.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">My objective was, through my example, to save from death the multitude of my subjects who, not knowing the value of this technique, and frightened of it, were left in danger.<\/p>\n<p><em>Catherine the Great<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>About the author.<\/strong><br \/>\nAn award-winning creator and digital health, wellness, and lifestyle content strategist \u2014 Karina writes, edits, and produces compelling content across multiple platforms \u2014 including articles, video, interactive tools, and documentary film. Her work has been featured on MSN Lifestyle, Apartment Therapy, Goop, Psycom, Pregnancy &amp; Newborn, Eat This Not That, thirdAGE, and Remedy Health Media digital properties.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The hunt is on for a vaccine for the current COVID-19 pandemic \u2014 and vaccination for other diseases is now commonplace. But did you know that Catherine the Great, the famed Tsarina of Russia, was one of the early champions of inoculation? Catherine the Great is Russia&#8217;s longest-serving female leader in more ways than one. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":50907,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[95,87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dei","category-perspectives"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.1 (Yoast SEO v25.6) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Catherine the Great: Queen of the Vaccine | Creative Circle<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The hunt is on for a vaccine for the current COVID-19 pandemic. But did you know that Catherine the Great was one of the early champions of inoculation?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Catherine the Great: Queen of the Vaccine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The hunt is on for a vaccine for the current COVID-19 pandemic. But did you know that Catherine the Great was one of the early champions of inoculation?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.creativecircle.com\/blog\/catherine-the-great-queen-of-the-vaccine\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Creative Circle\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CreativeCircleStaffing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-03-27T21:51:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.creativecircle.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/CatherineTheGreat-Final-01_blog.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"957\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Daniela Negrette\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@Creative_Circle\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Creative_Circle\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Daniela Negrette\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.creativecircle.com\/blog\/catherine-the-great-queen-of-the-vaccine\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.creativecircle.com\/blog\/catherine-the-great-queen-of-the-vaccine\/\",\"name\":\"Catherine the Great: Queen of the Vaccine | Creative Circle\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.creativecircle.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.creativecircle.com\/blog\/catherine-the-great-queen-of-the-vaccine\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.creativecircle.com\/blog\/catherine-the-great-queen-of-the-vaccine\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.creativecircle.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/CatherineTheGreat-Final-01_blog.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-03-27T21:51:54+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.creativecircle.com\/#\/schema\/person\/430a421aff02903a687b43ea5f3db691\"},\"description\":\"The hunt is on for a vaccine for the current COVID-19 pandemic. 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