Nicola, a schoolmate of mine, commenting on my previous column regarding the vaccination campaign of Balmis, Zendal, and Salvany in Latin America, reminded me that in 1770—twenty-six years before Edward Jenner—a German doctor had vaccinated in Denmark, yet credit for the discovery has remained with Jenner. That doctor’s name was Johann Friedrich Struensee.
Upon researching the matter, I discovered that what Struensee did during the smallpox epidemic in Copenhagen was actually variolation: he immunized the population by inoculating them with small doses of human smallpox material (rather than cowpox). The method carried significant risks: although mortality was low (one to three out of every hundred inoculated), those who were “variolated” could become transmitters of the contagion. In contrast, cowpox was harmless to humans, which explains the success and rapid spread of Jenner’s method.
Having clarified the point regarding the credit for that discovery, I followed Dr. Struensee’s trail and found a fascinating character, almost straight out of a novel. His star shone between 1770 and 1772, the year he (literally) lost his head. An excellent novel has been written about him (The Royal Physician’s Visit, by Swedish author Per Olov Enquist, published in 1999) and a magnificent film was made (A Royal Affair, directed by the Dane Nikolaj Arcel in 2012).
In the mid-18th century, Denmark was a power in Northern Europe: it ruled over Norway, Iceland, and Greenland, controlled trade between the North Sea and the Baltic, and possessed modest colonies in the Caribbean. In 1770, the reigning monarch was Christian VII, married to Caroline Matilda, the younger sister of George III of Great Britain. In 1768, the royal couple’s first son, the future Frederick VI, was born.
Shortly thereafter, during a smallpox epidemic, Prince Frederick was successfully variolated by Dr. Struensee, who had just joined the court in Copenhagen as the King’s personal physician. It is believed that Christian suffered from a severe mental illness—schizophrenia or porphyria—which left him practically incapacitated to rule. Struensee managed to soothe his physical and mental ailments, thereby quickly gaining his full trust.
An intelligent man committed to the Enlightenment ideas of the era, Struensee took advantage of his influence over the King to act, de facto, as the kingdom’s regent. In just two years, he pushed through an ambitious series of reforms to modernize Denmark: he abolished torture and forced peasant labor; he fought corruption and excessive bureaucracy; he eliminated press censorship; he reduced the privileges of the nobility; and he improved public health with hospitals for the poor and children.
The resistance of the nobility found the perfect pretext to overthrow him when his passionate and sincere affair with the neglected Queen Caroline Matilda came to light—ironically, thanks to the freedom of the press that he himself had established. It was suspected, with ample evidence, that Princess Louise Augusta, born in 1771, was the fruit of that relationship, although Struensee denied it until the end to protect the Queen’s honor.
Finally, with the King’s own blessing, the previous order was restored: Struensee was arrested, tortured (despite the fact that he had abolished the practice!), sentenced, and decapited on April 28, 1772. The Queen, repudiated, was exiled to Germany. She was only 23 years old.
Struensee’s Enlightenment reforms, implemented with a degree of arrogance and haste, were partially repealed. But they were not forgotten; instead, they contributed to Denmark becoming the advanced country it is today in terms of human rights and social welfare.
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