Abstract

The first experimental trials of smallpox inoculation were conducted on a group of prisoners in London’s Newgate Prison in 1721. These inmates were long believed to have been facing execution, but archival material reveals that they had in fact received pardons conditional on penal transportation to the Americas. This article rereads the design, progress, and reception of the experiment, reorienting the narrative around the prisoners, their agency, and the legal mechanisms of transportation and pardon. In that light the experiment reflects the dynamics of eighteenth-century governance and punishment: a relatively weak state’s reliance on contractors and deputies (whether to transport convicts or to conduct experiments), on the tacit co-operation of those below, and on the rhetorical management of its actions. Forced to accord the Newgate prisoners a measure of autonomy, the physicians and their royal backers faced a constant struggle to manage their subjects’ participation and to control the experiment’s meaning amid fierce controversy that ranged far beyond inoculation. The Newgate cohort reveals a basic identity between the medical subject and the political subject, but also highlights the fragility of such scripts, regardless of the political, economic, and cultural apparatus brought to bear.

中文翻译：

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无法说明的主题：Newgate天花实验（1721）中的合同法律和医疗机构

摘要

天花接种的第一项实验性试验于1721年在伦敦纽盖特监狱的一群囚犯中进行。长期以来，人们相信这些囚犯将面临处决，但档案材料显示，他们实际上已获得赦免，条件是必须将其运往美洲。本文重新阅读了实验的设计，进展和接受情况，重新定位了有关囚犯，他们的代理机构以及运输和赦免法律机制的叙述。有鉴于此，实验反映了18世纪治理和惩罚的动态：相对弱小的国家对承包商和代表的依赖（无论是运输罪犯还是进行实验），下层人士的默契合作以及言辞上的依赖管理其行为。在激烈的争议范围之外，医生和他们的王室支持者被迫赋予纽盖特囚犯一定程度的自治权，他们在管理受试者的参与和控制实验的意义方面一直面临着不懈的斗争。纽盖特（Newgate）队列揭示了医学主题和政治主题之间的基本身份，但同时也突出了此类文字的脆弱性，而与所承受的政治，经济和文化手段无关。