For this assignment I had to write a paper on a disease of my choice. I have been reading a book on smallpox so naturally I decided to write about it. Here in a young English girls Journal you can here about smallpox and it’s vaccine.

March 20th 1762,
Today I was in a mad mood. I wasn’t even really mad; I just wanted to be. Well, maybe I was mad. Mad because I had to go to the market to get fruit because it was our maid’s day off. Normally, I love going to the market, but it is the injustice that I am mad at. No middle class English girl suffers as much as I do. Why couldn’t my sister, Penelope, do it? She is just as capable as I am. After all, she is just two years younger. But mother said that she hasn’t been feeling well. Huh! I’m not feeling well! I will show them who is ‘not feeling well’. When I came to my house, I threw open the door and stomped my feet extra hard on our marble floor. To my surprise the hall was empty. No one rushed to my side to delicately grab my hat and “ooh and ah” over me. I walked through the hall and peeked into my father’s office. Empty. I ran up the stairs and stopped at the top. Quiet. Wait. No. I heard the murmuring of voices. I quickly melted into a sad mop and walked dolefully towards the voices. I started making up a story why I should be upset and rumpled up my hair a bit before walking into the room. I straightened at the sight I saw. Mother, father, and the surgeon were all crowded around Penelope.

April 13th 1762,
The last few weeks have been a troubling blur. Penelope has smallpox. It has gotten worse and worse. First, the aches and pains on that day I went to the market. Then the fever. And then the horrid spots. Penelope’s once beautiful dainty little face is full of hideous swollen bumps. The bumps are everywhere, not just on her face. They are on her hands, feet, and chest and pus runs non-stop. The surgeon said she must be separated from the rest of us or we will catch it, too, though I wonder if we have not already.

April 27th 1762,
Today she died. We are all overcome with grief.

April 30th 1762,
Father said that I must get a vaccine to the pox. I have started the preparatory process today. The surgeon said it will last six weeks. Six weeks of being bled to see if my blood is fine. Six weeks of a low diet and drinking a diet drink to sweeten my blood. I am not sure if I will survive, but when I think of my sister…

May 9th 1762,
Two ounces of blood are taken from my veins each day. And with the low diet I feel week. And besides that, I am made to vomit every day. I have lost 4 kilograms already, and I am only on the second week.

May 10th 1762,
I lay in my bed barely able to write. My room reeks of vomit and blood.
Our maid has left. What I would give to go to the market now.

June 13th 1762,
I haven’t written in so long only because of how weak I am, but in a few days I get my vaccine.

June 15th 1762,
The vaccine process is far different from what I expected. It almost seems like the surgeons themselves don’t know what they are doing. They slice open a vein on my arm and then rub some of the pus of a smallpox sore into it. I will have pox symptoms for a time, and until I don’t have any, I must be separated from the rest of the town. So I am sent to the quarantine stables in the country. There I will live until my small case of smallpox ends.

June 20th 1762,
I didn’t really think that the quarantine stables were really stables, but they are. I share a stall with eight people: Mrs. Lunderson, a grouchy old widow; Andrea, Mrs. Lunderson’s daughter; Adam White, a carpenter; Miss Peable, a meek, young woman; Mr. Hunter, who happens to be a hunter; John, Amy and Gretchen, who all are quiet little things who mostly keep to themselves. We each have our own straw bedding and a rough wool blanket. We are given two meals a day. There is nothing to do here, and I feel terribly tired.

June 24th 1762,
Found out that Amy and Gretchen are twins and have a very troublesome nature when they are bored. Mr. Hunter threatens to hunt him some chil’en if they don’t keep quiet. Mrs. Lunderson starts screaming that someone has messed with her knitting, which leads Andrea into a fuss about how embarrassing her mother is being, which gets John excited and he starts making faces at Andrea, which makes Adam upset so he starts lecturing John about how to treat a lady, and then Miss Peable says, “Why doesn’t every one just calm down?” I just sit and watch from my corner.
I started getting some spots today.

July 26th 1762,
My symptoms are over, and I am going home today. I say good-bye to all my stablemates and gather up my few things. Almost six months of my life has been consumed with the smallpox. But more importantly, it consumed my sister’s whole life and the lives of many others.
Today I am freed from its grasp forever.