X-Message-Number: 19120
References: <>
Date: Sun, 19 May 2002 12:45:25 +0200
From: David Stodolsky <>
Subject: Re: Small Pox & the Roman Catholic Church (& More)

http://reason.com/bioresearch/bioresearch.shtml

>Speaking of, for some reason, I neglected to record the author's name or the
>URL where I came across it. Yep, kind of slack, but what can I say?
>
>"For the Faculty of Theology, inoculation was an attempt by human beings to
>play, indeed, to be God, to interfere with the divine order, to refuse to
>submit to the providential order of things. Inoculation was an act of hubris,
>a wanton and insolent human intrusion onto God's domain, and if we crossed
>that line, how would we ever find our way back to our rightful place in the
>natural order? In the end, King Louis XV died of smallpox, the Court
>panicked, and the royal council hastily decreed its legalization across
>France. The Papacy, however, in its temporal authority over the Papal States,
>maintained a ban on inoculation until well into the 19th century."

dss

-- 
David S. Stodolsky, PhD    PGP: 0x35490763    

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