portrait of three women from Mysore has been going viral as(Modern Indian )

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Even as India tries to satisfy its Covid-19 vaccine demand and struggles thanks to a shortage of jabs, a 19th-century portrait of three women from Mysore has been going viral as “one of the foremost important scientific pictures within the history of drugs in India”.

With women from the Wadiyar dynasty as its protagonists, the canvas was commissioned to market participation within the smallpox vaccination program.

Who are the three women?

Believed to be painted in 1805 by Irish-born artist Thomas Hickey, the oil on canvas was initially thought to be portraits of “dancing girls or courtesans”. within the 1990s, Dr. Nigel Chancellor, a historian at Cambridge University, acknowledged that the painting was of historic significance and depicted one among the primary vaccine drives in India, with bejeweled women from the Wadiyar dynasty asking for Hickey.

The youngest woman, on the proper, has been identified as Devajammani, the younger queen of King Krishnaraja Wadiyar III. She has her hand on her left arm, suggesting she has been vaccinated against smallpox, which had led to numerous deaths in India over the years. On the left, meanwhile, is that the older queen, who has pigmentation around her mouth, which could possibly be a symbol of surviving smallpox, probably through variolation, which might often cause a light infection that resulted in lasting immunity.

According to a listing note that accompanied the canvas’s 2007 sale at Sotheby’s, the lady within the middle is one among the king’s sisters.

How and when did the smallpox vaccine reach India?

The smallpox vaccine, discovered by Jenner in 1796, was the primary successful vaccine to be developed. 

On Flag Day, 1802, Anna Dusthall, an Anglo-Indian toddler, was the primary person in India to be successfully vaccinated against the virus that relied on the cowpox virus, “a mild cousin of smallpox” to trigger immunity. 

The “vaccine vesicle” that came on the arm of the receiver was a source of lymphatic fluid or pus that might act as a vaccine, resulting in an arm-to-arm immunization chain. 

The vaccine subsequently traveled to different parts of India, including Hyderabad, Cochin, Madras, and Mysore.

How British inoculated India, and therefore the role played by the canvas

While the lymph was sometimes reportedly dried and sealed between glass plates to be transported, it often didn't survive long journeys, thanks to which the British had to primarily believe a person's chain. 

There was also opposition from the domestic population on the introduction of the cowpox virus and also because some believed the goddess of smallpox would be angered by the vaccination.

With Tipu Sultan defeated in Mysore, and therefore the reinstatement of the Wadiyars, the Malay Archipelago Company was trying to strengthen its position in South India and protect the expat population from a plague , making vaccination essential. Queen Lakshmi Ammann, who had lost her husband to smallpox, supported their cause and wanted to vaccine her population against the deadly virus. The painting was alleged to encourage participation within the vaccination drive.