Lucy Ward speaks to Elinor Evans about the story of English Quaker doctor Thomas Dimsdale, who took up the risky challenge of inoculating Empress Catherine II – Catherine the Great – against smallpox, as a powerful statement at a time when the disease was ravaging Russia and superstition held sway.

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Lucy Ward is the author of The Empress and the English Doctor: How Catherine the Great defied a deadly virus (Oneworld Publications, 2022)

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Authors

Elinor EvansDigital editor

Elinor Evans is digital editor of HistoryExtra.com. She commissions and writes history articles for the website, and regularly interviews historians for the award-winning HistoryExtra podcast

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