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Les rois aussi en mouraient : Les Lumières en lutte contre la petite vérole

This monograph examines the impact of the controversial introduction of smallpox inoculation in Europe on fields including theology, mathematics, fashion, scientific discourse and literature. France is the starting point but the thesis is extended to consider reactions in countries from England to Russia. The monograph is the result of a decade of research in archives in London, Milan, Paris and Geneva examining a particularly extensive and complex corpus of primary manuscript medical sources as well as a broad range of canonical authors and genres, including novels (Rousseau), poetry (Darluc, abbé Roman), journalism (Alembert, Diderot) and epistles (Voltaire, La Condamine).