She returned to London and had her daughter variolated in 1721 by Charles Maitland, during an epidemic of smallpox. This encouraged the British Royal Family to take an interest and a trial of variolation was carried out on prisoners in Newgate Prison. This was successful and in 1722 Caroline of Ansbach, the Princess of Wales, allowed Maitland to vaccinate her children. The success of these variolations assured the British people that the procedure was safe. Stimulated by a severe epidemic, variolation was first employed in North America in 1721. The procedure had been known in Boston since 1706, when preacher Cotton Mather learned it from Onesimus, a man he held as a slave, who – like many of his peers – had been inoculated in Africa before they were kidnapped. This practice was widely criticized at first. However, a limited trial showed six deaths occurred out of 244 who were variolated (2.5%), while 844 out of 5980 died of natural disease (14%), and the process was widely adopted throughout the colonies.The inoculation technique was documented as having a mortality rate of only one in a thousand.
Triplegia is a medical condition characterized by the paralysis of three limbs. While there is no typical pattern of involvement, it is usually associated with paralysis of both legs and one arm—but can also involve both arms and one leg. Triplegia can sometimes be considered a combination of hemiplegia (paralysis of arm and leg of one side of the body) overlaying diplegia (paralysis of both legs), or as quadriplegia (paralysis of four limbs) with less involvement in one extremity.The condition is commonly associated with cerebral palsy, although conditions such as strokes can also lead to it. Triplegia has also been found to be due to an increase in intracranial pressure associated with hydrocephalus resulting from traumatic brain injury.A similar condition is triparesis, in which a person has paresis in three limbs, meaning that the limbs are very weak, but not completely paralyzed. In a case reported only due to its rarity, triplegia was reported following a surgical removal of the tonsils. An eight-year-old boy was sent to Willard Parker Hospital on August 12, 1929, and had been diagnosed with poliomyelitis. After an unrelated, and routine, tonsillectomy there was complete flaccid paralysis and loss of feeling in both the legs, right arm, and muscles in the trunk. == References ==