The first issue of the policy

 The first issue of the policyI'm going to tell you something that I'm sure you'll want to see with your own eyes. The incidence and mortality of smallpox in our country (England) is very high, but here (Turkey) it is almost non-existent due to the wonderful invention of vaccination. There are ordinary experienced women who do this procedure every fall. Every year an old lady arrives with a small amount of carefully selected smallpox poison and injects a very small amount into the bloodstream

through a marked vein using a needle... thousands of people every year. enter this program and till date there is no case of human death due to it. Take my word for it that I am fully convinced of the safety of this practice ... and as a patriot, I will do my best to see that this useful invention is introduced into England."This letter was written by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu to a friend during her stay in Turkey in 1717. In 1716, Lady Mary's husband, Edward Wortley Montagu, was appointed British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, so he accompanied her to Turkey. In Turkey, when for the first time a European woman had the opportunity to visit an Eastern country, Lady Mary with her creative ability preserved the knowledge she gained through her books. The above letter was also written at this time. The process of "grafting" that Lady Mary refers to in this letter was a medical practice that had been practiced by Ottoman Turks for centuries to protect themselves and their children from infectious diseases such as smallpox. This was of great concern to Lady Mary because her brother had died of smallpox in England a few years earlier in 1713, and in 1715 Lady Mary was also disabled by the disease. When Lady Mary explored this method of transplantation due to her brother's death and her own knowledge of the disease, she realized that there was no way to prevent smallpox outbreaks in Europe at the time. He did a lot of research on this ability and to his delight, his son was re-inoculated to protect him from smallpox. When Lady Mary first spoke about this process after returning to England from Turkey in 1718, she faced strong opposition. Not to mention the public, this procedure was opposed even by British doctors, who called it oriental fart, tuna point and even cure.It was during this debate that the smallpox epidemic broke out in England in 1721. It was at this time that Lady Mary vaccinated her daughter to protect her from smallpox and to make it known. Through her efforts, Lady Mary greatly convinced Princess Caroline, Princess of Wales, and in August 1721 the method was tested by the trial of seven prisoners awaiting execution. The experiment was successful and no adverse effects on the health of the seven prisoners were observed. Although opposition to this procedure did not end, Princess Caroline, seeing the effectiveness of this method of protection, had her daughters Amelia and Caroline transplanted in April 1722. Despite increasing opposition, Lady Mary's courage did not waver and she continued to fight smallpox until her death. Lady Mary's struggle paved the way for vaccination in England, and just a few years after her death, Edward Jenner laid the legal basis for "vaccination" (the science of vaccines) based on his experience. There are two main points in this whole story that I would like you to notice. The starting point is Lady Mary's experience of illness and seeing healing. Lady Mary was traumatized by her brother's death, she also fell ill with it and the effects of this disease stayed in her body for the rest of her life. But as soon as Lady Mary knew of a remedy or remedy, she saw it, tried the method, and to her satisfaction not only did she save her son and daughter in brains, but on her return to England, restored her to perfect recovery. . he tried to save others from this deadly disease. The second point is the response and opposition to this new approach in society. Allama Iqbal describes it in his poem as follows:Fear of a new constitution, flying in Kuhn's styleThe end is a problem in the life of nationsLook at the natural irony that three hundred years ago, the behavior adopted by the British, we are doing the same thing today. Until yesterday, only the polio vaccine was unacceptable, but now we suspect a Jewish-Christian conspiracy about the typhoid vaccine. Yes! Jews and Christians alike learned how to vaccinate from Muslims in the Ottoman Caliphate.