THE ROMANCE OF SMALL-POX.

Otago Witness, Issue 2516, 4 June 1902, Page 65

THE ROMANCE OF SMALL-POX.

Small-pox is hardly tiie terrifying malady it used to be in the days when remedies almost worse than the disea.se were employed, and when, if people recovered, their looks were usually spoiled for life. Queen Elizabeth was attacked by it at the very time when she was corresponding with Catherine de Medicis over the small-pox marks with which Catherine*, youngest son, then Elizabeth's suitor, was considerably disfigured. The French Queen had declared that the visage of her son was much amended, and better every day ; and that remedies for the further improvement of his complexion should be tried, fn>t on a page, and if successful, then on the Prince, the Due d'Alencon. The English Queen had remarked that, considering the great love which Catherine had always shown for her children, it was astonishing she had not sooner endeavoured tc remove so great a disfigurement a=- the scars w Inch marred the countenance of her son.

When Eh/abeth was seized with the disease, two or thi - ee days after this observation, hei subjects were naturally in the greatest alarm, her life being then so precious to the nation. The attack proved to be a light one, the red spots on Gloriana's

Ambassador was soon able to assure her Majesty that the malady had so greatly improved her charms that she should no longer delay her marriage.

Queen Mary II was taken ill with smallpox in 1694. at p time when the disease was very prevalent in London. She ordered all her attendants who had not had the disorder to leave Kensington Palace ; and then, instead of behaving as an invalid should when assailed by a dangerous malady, she sat up all one night in her cabinet, burning a good many papers and arranging others, and finishing by writing a letter to her h-isband respecting his intimacy with Elizabeth Villiers.

As might have been expected, she soon became woise ; ai;d her recovery may also have been hindered by her previous habit of over-feeding, for both Mary II and her sister Anna were addicted to good living. On her condition becoming hopeless King William o: tiered his camp-bed to be brought inlo the Queen's room, and he remained v, >th her till she died.

The cost"me of Queen Mary's wax effigy in the Islip Chapel, Westminster Abbey, should be of great interest at the present time, as in several details it resembles the mode-! Cu:aiation robe for peeresses now becoming ."ainili.ir to the public. The ermine trim: ling of the train is graduated very ele^'.mtly to meet the ermine stomacher, or bodice plastron. The sleeves have handsome lace ruffles depending from them ; and the material principally used in these Royal trappings is velvet, but of a purple colour, not,, crimson. In some respects the great Empress Maria Theresa was a hard mother, too closely occupied with affairs of State to pay much attention to her numerous children. Her eldest son's wife died of small-pox, and was buried in {lie Imperial family vault. Into this dismal cavern the Empress actually ordered one of her own daughters, the Archduchess Josepha, betrothed to the King of Naples, to descend and pray. The unfortunate girl received the command as a sentence of death, having a presentiment that this visit to the vault would give her the sister-in-law's complaint ; and in a few days she was also dead of small-pox. Not so very long ago the great ones of the earth, v'ien ill of infectious disorders, were nursed in the same stuffy manner as inferior persons — fresh air being regarded as specially dangerous. The atmosphere, therefore, of an illustrious sufferer's apartment became- well adapted to poison everybody venturing near. When Louis XV was dying of small-pox at Versailles more than 50 people who merely passed through the palace took the complaint ; and the King might almost have been lefr by his frightened physicians and courtiers to die alone had it not been for the devotion of his elderly spinster daughters, v. ho took turns in watching and nursing him night and day. Those dutiful princesses did not catch the dir ease ; nor is it on. record that any harm came to the two or three minor attendants and some poor working men who bravely prepared the dead King for his burial, while a crowd of fine folk, who but recently had been at his beck and call, were madly hurrying away.