{"product_id":"9780525947363","title":"The Speckled Monster: A Historical Tale of Battling Smallpox","description":"A timely book about history's first desperate efforts to conquer the spotted beast of smallpox.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e What is it like to be caught in the terror and chaos of a smallpox epidemic when you and those you love are unprotected? What is it like to get smallpox, or to watch your children battle the disease? \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eThe Speckled Monster\u003c\/i\u003e tells the dramatic story-both historical and timely-of two parents who dared to fight back against the disease. After barely surviving the agony of smallpox themselves, they both flouted eighteenth-century European medical tradition by borrowing folk knowledge from African slaves and eastern women in frantic bids to protect their children. From their heroic struggles stem the modern science of immunology as well as the vaccinations that remain our only hope should the disease ever be unleashed again. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Jennifer Lee Carrell transports readers back to the early eighteenth century to tell the tales of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Dr. Zabdiel Boylston: two iconoclastic figures who helped save the cities of London and Boston from the deadliest disease mankind has known. \u003cp\u003eAuthor Biography: Jennifer Lee Carrell holds a Ph.D. in English and American Literature from Harvard University. A writer for \u003ci\u003eSmithsonian\u003c\/i\u003e magazine, she has taught in the history and literature programs at Harvard.  \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Penguin Publishing Group","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47026126651632,"sku":"9780525947363","price":25.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780525947363_p0.jpg?v=1763710693","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780525947363","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}