Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu defied convention most memorably with her pioneering of a smallpox inoculation, a course of action unparalleled in medical advance up to that point. Lady Mary's own brother had died of smallpox and her own famous beauty had been marred by a bout with the disease in 1715. Because the disease affected her in so many ways, she expressed her thoughts through her poetry. She even talks about what was commonly known during this time as the vapors. When you had the vapors, you were considered to be in hysteria (craziness). It was said that the vapors took place in the womb and caused vapors into the brain. She writes a poem about the vapors where she tells women to pick themselves up and move on with their lives. Montagu was a very interesting writer who advocated for women's rights through her writing.