A newly unearthed letter from Admiral Horatio Nelson to his mistress Lady Emma Hamilton has revealed how he urged her to give their infant daughter the recently developed smallpox vaccine
The 1801 letter, discovered in the archives at the National Maritime Museum, makes no mention of a dangerous mission to France Nelson was due to make, but instead focuses on the health of his daughter, Horatia.
It was written just three years after Edward Jenner discovered milkmaids who developed cowpox through working close to the animals seemed to be protected from smallpox, the human form of the disease.
In a letter to Lady Hamilton, Admiral Nelson wrote: The child is only feverish for two days; and only a slight inflammation of the arm takes place, instead of being all over scabs.