note: #rfkjr wants to bring #smallpox back. Back to a time of ‘horse and buggy’. Back to this---it’s so unnecessarily. Unnecessary suffering for RFK Jr.’s ego & wealth.
Subsequently, Esther herself is stricken, suffering not only the skin problems associated with the disease, but also blindness. Given the virulence of both smallpox viruses, the British goverment in the 1850s, enacted a series of laws that made vaccination against smallpox compulsory.
Scanned image and text by George P. Landow; additional text by Philip V. Allingham. Via Victorianweb
..Esther and Charley take in a vagrant Jo, who seems to be suffering the ill-effects of a raging fever. By the next morning, Jo has vanished, but he has left his illness behind him. Although Dickens does not identify the contagion as smallpox, he does mention Smallpox, the narrator (Esther) does express her concern that, should Charley survive, she will be much disfigured. Esther tends her young maid throughout her illness.
“I was very sorrowful to think that Charley's pretty looks would change and be disfigured, even if she recovered — she was such a child with her dimpled face — but that thought was, for the greater part, lost in her greater peril. When she was at the worst, and her mind rambled again [...]”
“And thus poor Charley sickened and grew worse, and fell into heavy danger of death, and lay severely ill for many a long round of day and night. [...]I silently prayed to our Father in heaven that I might not forget the lesson which this little sister taught me…. #bookstodon
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