PG Times

On June 14, 1802, three-year-old Anna Dusthall became the first child in India to successfully receive the smallpox vaccine. Only the barest details are known about Dusthall— she was a healthy girl, possibly of mixed racial identity, “remarkably good tempered” — a trait crucial to the vaccination’s success — and, from the pus that formed on her skin upon vaccination, five more children were vaccinated in the city of Bombay. Thereon, enough vaccine material was collected using her lymph and sent to Poona, Surat, Hyderabad, Ceylon, Madras and more places along the coast and the Deccan. Dr Helenus Scott, the physician who vaccinated her, hoped that with the availability of the vaccine, “one of the greatest evils that has afflicted humanity” would be diminished or even extinguished. His wish would take root, but not before a confusing century, riddled with challenges and challengers, passed by. As recent research indicates, the history of smallpox vaccination in colonial India wasn’t a sim...