title: Cardinal (Catholic Church)

text: Each cardinal is assigned a titular church upon his creation, which is always a church in the city of Rome. Through the process of opting ("optazione"), a cardinal can raise through the ranks from cardinal deacon to priest, and from cardinal priest to that of cardinal bishop - in which case he obtains one of the suburbicarian sees located around the city of Rome. The only exception is for patriarchs of the Eastern Catholic Churches. Nevertheless, cardinals possess no power of governance nor are they to intervene in any way in matters which pertain to the administration of goods, discipline, or the service of their titular churches. They are allowed to celebrate Mass and hear confessions and lead visits and pilgrimages to their titular churches, in coordination with the staff of the church. They often support their churches monetarily, and many cardinals do keep in contact with the pastoral staffs of their titular churches. The term cardinal is from the Latin word "cardo" meaning a hinge. Here it means a "door", an example of synecdoche, a figure of speech whereby the part refers to the whole. The "door" is the address of the titular church from which the cardinal derives his membership of the Roman clergy, who elect the pope.


title: Cardinal (Catholic Church)

text: The Dean of the College of Cardinals in addition to such a titular church also receives the titular bishopric of Ostia, the primary suburbicarian see. Cardinals governing a particular church retain that church.


title: Cardinal (Catholic Church)

text: In 1630, Pope Urban VIII decreed their title to be "Eminence" (previously, it had been "illustrissimo" and "reverendissimo") and decreed that their secular rank would equate to Prince, making them secondary only to the pope and crowned monarchs.


title: Cardinal (Catholic Church)

text: In accordance with tradition, they sign by placing the title "Cardinal" (abbreviated "Card.") after their personal name and before their surname as, for instance, "John Card(inal) Doe" or, in Latin, "Ioannes Card(inalis) Doe". Some writers, such as James-Charles Noonan, hold that, in the case of cardinals, the form used for signatures should be used also when referring to them in English. However, official sources, such as the Catholic News Service, say that the correct form for referring to a cardinal in English is normally as "Cardinal [First name] [Surname]". This is the rule given also in stylebooks not associated with the church. This style is also generally followed on the websites of the Holy See and episcopal conferences. Oriental patriarchs who are created cardinals customarily use "Sanctae Ecclesiae Cardinalis" as their full title, probably because they do not belong to the Roman clergy.


title: Cardinal (Catholic Church)

text: The [First name] Cardinal [Surname] order is used in the Latin proclamation of the election of a new pope by the cardinal protodeacon, if the new pope is a cardinal, as it has been since 1378.


title: Cardinal (Catholic Church)

text: Cardinal bishops (cardinals of the episcopal order; ) are the senior order of cardinals. Though in modern times the vast majority of cardinals are also bishops or archbishops, few are "cardinal bishops". For most of the second millennium there were six cardinal bishops, each presiding over one of the seven suburbicarian sees around Rome: Ostia, Albano, Porto and Santa Rufina, Palestrina, Sabina and Mentana, Frascati, and Velletri. Velletri was united with Ostia from 1150 until 1914, when Pope Pius X separated them again, but decreed that whichever cardinal bishop became Dean of the College of Cardinals would keep the suburbicarian see he already held, adding to it that of Ostia, with the result that there continued to be only six cardinal bishops. Since 1962, the cardinal bishops have only a titular relationship with the suburbicarian sees, each of which is governed by a separate ordinary.


title: Cardinal (Catholic Church)

text: Until 1961, membership in the order of cardinal bishops was achieved through precedence in the College of Cardinals. When a suburbicarian see fell vacant, the most senior cardinal by precedence could exercise his option to claim the see and be promoted to the order of cardinal bishops. Pope John XXIII abolished that privilege on 10 March 1961 and made the right to promote someone to the order of cardinal bishops the sole prerogative of the pope.


title: Cardinal (Catholic Church)

text: In 1965, Pope Paul VI decreed in his "motu proprio" "Ad purpuratorum Patrum Collegium" that patriarchs of the Eastern Catholic Churches who were named cardinals (i.e. "cardinal patriarchs") would also be cardinal bishops, ranking after the six Roman rite cardinal bishops of the suburbicarian sees. (Latin Church patriarchs who become cardinals are cardinal priests, not cardinal bishops: for example Angelo Scola was made Patriarch of Venice in 2002 and cardinal priest of Santi XII Apostoli in 2003.) Those of cardinal patriarch rank continue to hold their patriarchal see and are not assigned any Roman title (suburbicarian see or title or deaconry).


title: Cardinal (Catholic Church)

text: At the June 2018 consistory, Pope Francis increased the number of Latin Church cardinal bishops to match the expansion in cardinal priests and cardinal deacons in recent decades. He elevated four cardinals to this rank granting their titular churches and deaconries suburbicarian rank "pro hac vice" (temporarily) and making them equivalent to suburbicarian see titles. At the time of the announcement, all six cardinal bishops of suburbicarian see titles, as well as two of the three cardinal patriarchs, were non-electors because of having reached age 80. Pope Francis created another cardinal bishop in the same way on 1 May 2020, bringing the number of Latin Church cardinal bishops to eleven.


title: Cardinal (Catholic Church)

text: The Dean of the College of Cardinals, the highest ranking cardinal, was formerly the longest serving cardinal bishop, but since 1965 is elected by the Latin Church cardinal bishops from among their number, subject to papal approval. Likewise the Vice-Dean, formerly the second longest serving, is also elected. Seniority of the remaining Latin Church cardinal bishops is still by date of appointment to the rank. For a period ending in the mid-20th century, long-serving cardinal priests were entitled to fill vacancies that arose among the cardinal bishops, just as cardinal deacons of ten years' standing are still entitled to become cardinal priests.


title: Cardinal (Catholic Church)

text: Cardinal priests () are the most numerous of the three orders of cardinals in the Catholic Church, ranking above the cardinal deacons and below the cardinal bishops. Those who are named cardinal priests today are generally also bishops of important dioceses throughout the world, though some hold Curial positions.


title: Cardinal (Catholic Church)

text: In modern times, the name "cardinal priest" is interpreted as meaning a cardinal who is of the order of priests. Originally, however, this referred to certain key priests of important churches of the Diocese of Rome, who were recognized as the "cardinal" priests, the important priests chosen by the pope to advise him in his duties as Bishop of Rome (the Latin "cardo" means "hinge"). Certain clerics in many dioceses at the time, not just that of Rome, were said to be the key personnel—the term gradually became exclusive to Rome to indicate those entrusted with electing the Bishop of Rome, the pope.


title: Cardinal (Catholic Church)

text: While the cardinalate has long been expanded beyond the Roman pastoral clergy and Roman Curia, every cardinal priest has a titular church in Rome, though they may be bishops or archbishops elsewhere, just as cardinal bishops were given one of the suburbicarian dioceses around Rome. Pope Paul VI abolished all administrative rights cardinals had with regard to their titular churches, though the cardinal's name and coat of arms are still posted in the church, and they are expected to celebrate Mass and preach there if convenient when they are in Rome.


title: Cardinal (Catholic Church)

text: While the number of cardinals was small from the times of the Roman Empire to the Renaissance, and frequently smaller than the number of recognized churches entitled to a cardinal priest, in the 16th century the college expanded markedly. In 1587, Pope Sixtus V sought to arrest this growth by fixing the maximum size of the college at 70, including 50 cardinal priests, about twice the historical number. This limit was respected until 1958, and the list of titular churches modified only on rare occasions, generally when a building fell into disrepair. When Pope John XXIII abolished the limit, he began to add new churches to the list, which Popes Paul VI and John Paul II continued to do. Today there are close to 150 titular churches, out of over 300 churches in Rome.


title: Cardinal (Catholic Church)

text: The cardinal who is the longest-serving member of the order of cardinal priests is titled "cardinal protopriest". He had certain ceremonial duties in the conclave that have effectively ceased because he would generally have already reached age 80, at which cardinals are barred from the conclave. The current cardinal protopriest is Michael Michai Kitbunchu of Thailand.


title: Cardinal (Catholic Church)

text: The cardinal deacons () are the lowest-ranking cardinals. Cardinals elevated to the diaconal order are either officials of the Roman Curia or priests elevated after their 80th birthday. Bishops with diocesan responsibilities, however, are created cardinal priests.


title: Cardinal (Catholic Church)

text: Cardinal deacons derive originally from the seven deacons in the Papal Household who supervised the Church's works in the seven districts of Rome during the early Middle Ages, when church administration was effectively the government of Rome and provided all social services. They came to be called "cardinal deacons" by the late eighth century, and they were granted active rights in papal elections and made eligible for the election as pope by the decree of 769.


title: Cardinal (Catholic Church)

text: Cardinals elevated to the diaconal order are mainly officials of the Roman Curia holding various posts in the church administration. Their number and influence has varied through the years. While historically predominantly Italian the group has become much more internationally diverse in later years. While in 1939 about half were Italian by 1994 the number was reduced to one third. Their influence in the election of the pope has been considered important. They are better informed and connected than the dislocated cardinals but their level of unity has been varied. Under the 1587 decree of Pope Sixtus V, which fixed the maximum size of the College of Cardinals, there were 14 cardinal deacons. Later the number increased. As late as 1939 almost half of the cardinals were members of the curia. Pius XII reduced this percentage to 24 percent. John XXIII brought it back up to 37 percent but Paul VI brought it down to 27 percent where John Paul II maintained this ratio.


title: Cardinal (Catholic Church)

text: As of 2005, there were over 50 churches recognized as cardinalatial deaconries, though there were only 30 cardinals of the order of deacons. Cardinal deacons have long enjoyed the right to "opt for the order of cardinal priests" ("optazione") after they have been cardinal deacons for 10 years. They may on such elevation take a vacant "title" (a church allotted to a cardinal priest as the church in Rome with which he is associated) or their diaconal church may be temporarily elevated to a cardinal priest's "title" for that occasion. When elevated to cardinal priests, they take their precedence according to the day they were first made cardinal deacons (thus ranking above cardinal priests who were elevated to the college after them, regardless of order).


title: Cardinal (Catholic Church)

text: When not celebrating Mass but still serving a liturgical function, such as the semiannual "Urbi et Orbi" papal blessing, some Papal Masses and some events at Ecumenical Councils, cardinal deacons can be recognized by the dalmatics they would don with the simple white mitre (so called "mitra simplex").


title: Cardinal (Catholic Church)

text: The cardinal protodeacon is the senior cardinal deacon in order of appointment to the College of Cardinals. If he is a cardinal elector and participates in a conclave, he announces a new pope's election and name from the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City. The protodeacon also bestows the pallium on the new pope and crowns him with the papal tiara, although the crowning has not been celebrated since Pope John Paul I opted for a simpler papal inauguration ceremony in 1978. The current cardinal protodeacon is Renato Raffaele Martino.


title: Cardinal (Catholic Church)

text: <nowiki>* </nowiki>Ceased to be protodeacon upon being raised to the order of cardinal-priest† Was protodeacon at time of death


title: Cardinal (Catholic Church)

text: The Cardinal Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church, assisted by the Vice-Camerlengo and the other prelates of the office known as the Apostolic Camera, has functions that in essence are limited to a period of "sede vacante" of the papacy. He is to collate information about the financial situation of all administrations dependent on the Holy See and present the results to the College of Cardinals, as they gather for the papal conclave.


title: Cardinal (Catholic Church)

text: Until 1918, any cleric, even one only in minor orders, could be created a cardinal (see "lay cardinals", below), but enrolled only in the order of cardinal deacons. For example, in the 16th century, Reginald Pole was a cardinal for 18 years before he was ordained a priest. The 1917 Code of Canon Law mandated that all cardinals, even cardinal deacons, had to be priests, and, in 1962, Pope John XXIII set the norm that all cardinals be consecrated as bishops, even if they are only priests at the time of appointment. As a consequence of these two changes, canon 351 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law requires that a cardinal be at least in the order of priesthood at his appointment, and that those who are not already bishops must receive episcopal consecration. Several cardinals near to or over the age of 80 or when appointed have obtained dispensation from the rule of having to be a bishop. These were all appointed cardinal-deacons, but Roberto Tucci and Albert Vanhoye lived long enough to exercise the right of option and be promoted to the rank of cardinal-priest.


title: Cardinal (Catholic Church)

text: A cardinal who is not a bishop is entitled to wear and use the episcopal vestments and other pontificalia (episcopal regalia: mitre, crozier, zucchetto, pectoral cross, and ring). He has both actual and honorary precedence over patriarchs, archbishops, and bishops who are not cardinals. However, he cannot perform the sacrament of ordination or other rites reserved solely to bishops. The prominent priests who since 1962 were not ordained bishops on their elevation to the cardinalate were over the age of 80 or near to it, and so no cardinal who was not a bishop has participated in recent papal conclaves.


title: Cardinal (Catholic Church)

text: At various times, there have been cardinals who had only received first tonsure and minor orders but not yet been ordained as deacons or priests. Though clerics, they were inaccurately called "lay cardinals". Teodolfo Mertel was among the last of the lay cardinals. When he died in 1899 he was the last surviving cardinal who was not at least ordained a priest. With the revision of the Code of Canon Law promulgated in 1917 by Pope Benedict XV, only those who are already priests or bishops may be appointed cardinals. Since the time of Pope John XXIII a priest who is appointed a cardinal must be consecrated a bishop, unless he obtains a dispensation.


title: Cardinal (Catholic Church)

text: In addition to the named cardinals, the pope may name secret cardinals or cardinals "in pectore" (Latin for "in the breast"). During the Western Schism, many cardinals were created by the contending popes. Beginning with the reign of Pope Martin V, cardinals were created without publishing their names until later, a practice termed "creati et reservati in pectore". A cardinal named "in pectore" is known only to the pope. In the modern era, popes have named cardinals "in pectore" to protect them or their congregations from political reprisals. If conditions change, the pope makes the appointment public. The cardinal in question then ranks in precedence with those made cardinals at the time of his "in pectore" appointment. If a pope dies before revealing the identity of an "in pectore" cardinal, the person's status as cardinal expires. The last pope known to have named a cardinal "in pectore" is Pope John Paul II, who named four, including one whose identity was never revealed.


title: Cardinal (Catholic Church)

text: When in choir dress, a Latin Church cardinal wears scarlet garments—the blood-like red symbolizes a cardinal's willingness to die for his faith. Excluding the rochet — which is always white—the scarlet garments include the cassock, mozzetta, and biretta (over the usual scarlet zucchetto). The biretta of a cardinal is distinctive not merely for its scarlet color, but also for the fact that it does not have a pompon or tassel on the top as do the birettas of other prelates. Until the 1460s, it was customary for cardinals to wear a violet or blue cape unless granted the privilege of wearing red when acting on papal business. His normal-wear cassock is black but has scarlet piping and a scarlet fascia (sash). Occasionally, a cardinal wears a scarlet "ferraiolo" which is a cape worn over the shoulders, tied at the neck in a bow by narrow strips of cloth in the front, without any 'trim' or piping on it. It is because of the scarlet color of cardinals' vesture that the bird of the same name has become known as such.


title: Cardinal (Catholic Church)

text: Eastern Catholic cardinals continue to wear the normal dress appropriate to their liturgical tradition, though some may line their cassocks with scarlet and wear scarlet fascias, or in some cases, wear Eastern-style cassocks entirely of scarlet.


title: Cardinal (Catholic Church)

text: In previous times, at the consistory at which the pope named a new cardinal, he would bestow upon him a distinctive wide-brimmed hat called a galero. This custom was discontinued in 1969 and the investiture now takes place with the scarlet biretta. In ecclesiastical heraldry, however, the scarlet galero is still displayed on the cardinal's coat of arms. Cardinals had the right to display the galero in their cathedral, and when a cardinal died, it would be suspended from the ceiling above his tomb. Some cardinals will still have a galero made, even though it is not officially part of their apparel.


title: Cardinal (Catholic Church)

text: To symbolize their bond with the papacy, the pope gives each newly appointed cardinal a gold ring, which is traditionally kissed by Catholics when greeting a cardinal (as with a bishop's episcopal ring). Before the new uniformity imposed by John Paul II, each cardinal was given a ring, the central piece of which was a gem, usually a sapphire, with the pope's stemma engraved on the inside. There is now no gemstone, and the pope chooses the image on the outside: under Pope Benedict XVI it was a modern depiction of the crucifixion of Jesus, with Mary and John to each side. The ring includes the pope's coat of arms on the inside.


title: Cardinal (Catholic Church)

text: Cardinals have in canon law a "privilege of forum" (i.e., exemption from being judged by ecclesiastical tribunals of ordinary rank): only the pope is competent to judge them in matters subject to ecclesiastical jurisdiction (cases that refer to matters that are spiritual or linked with the spiritual, or with regard to infringement of ecclesiastical laws and whatever contains an element of sin, where culpability must be determined and the appropriate


title: Cardinal (Catholic Church)

text: ecclesiastical penalty imposed). The pope either decides the case himself or delegates the decision to a tribunal, usually one of the tribunals or congregations of the Roman Curia. Without such delegation, no ecclesiastical court, even the Roman Rota, is competent to judge a canon law case against a cardinal.


title: Cardinal (Catholic Church)

text: Additionally, canon law gives cardinals the faculty of hearing confessions validly and licitly everywhere, whereas other priests and bishops must be granted this faculty and might be restricted in its use by the local bishop.


title: Cobalt-60

text: Cobalt-60 (Co) is a synthetic radioactive isotope of cobalt with a half-life of 5.2713 years. It is produced artificially in nuclear reactors. Deliberate industrial production depends on neutron activation of bulk samples of the monoisotopic and mononuclidic cobalt isotope . Measurable quantities are also produced as a by-product of typical nuclear power plant operation and may be detected externally when leaks occur. In the latter case (in the absence of added cobalt) the incidentally produced is largely the result of multiple stages of neutron activation of iron isotopes in the reactor's steel structures via the creation of its precursor. The simplest case of the latter would result from the activation of . undergoes beta decay to the stable isotope nickel-60 (). The activated nickel nucleus emits two gamma rays with energies of 1.17 and 1.33 MeV, hence the overall equation of the nuclear reaction (activation and decay) is:


title: Cobalt-60

text: Corresponding to its half-life, the radioactive activity of one gram of is . The "absorbed dose constant" is related to the decay energy and time. For it is equal to 0.35 mSv/(GBq h) at one meter from the source. This allows calculation of the equivalent dose, which depends on distance and activity.


title: Cobalt-60

text: For example, a source with an activity of 2.8 GBq, which is equivalent to 60 μg of pure , generates a dose of 1 mSv at one meter distance within one hour. The swallowing of reduces the distance to a few millimeters, and the same dose is achieved within seconds.


title: Cobalt-60

text: Test sources, such as those used for school experiments, have an activity of <100 kBq. Devices for nondestructive material testing use sources with activities of 1 TBq and more.


title: Cobalt-60

text: The high γ-energies result in a significant mass difference between and of 0.003 u. This amounts to nearly 20 watts per gram, nearly 30 times larger than that of .


title: Cobalt-60

text: The diagram shows a (simplified) decay scheme of and . The main β-decay transitions are shown. The probability for population of the middle energy level of 2.1 MeV by β-decay is 0.0022%, with a maximum energy of 665.26 keV. Energy transfers between the three levels generate six different gamma-ray frequencies. In the diagram the two important ones are marked. Internal conversion energies are well below the main energy levels.


title: Cobalt-60

text: The main advantage of is that it is a high-intensity gamma-ray emitter with a relatively long half-life, 5.27 years, compared to other gamma ray sources of similar intensity. The β-decay energy is low and easily shielded; however, the gamma-ray emission lines have energies around 1.3 MeV, and are highly penetrating. The physical properties of cobalt such as resistance to bulk oxidation and low solubility in water give some advantages in safety in the case of a containment breach over some other gamma sources such as caesium-137.


title: Cobalt-60

text: Cobalt has been discussed as a "salting" element to add to nuclear weapons, to produce a cobalt bomb, an extremely "dirty" weapon which would contaminate large areas with nuclear fallout, rendering them uninhabitable. In one hypothetical design, the tamper of the weapon would be made of . When the bomb exploded, the excess neutrons from the nuclear fission would irradiate the cobalt and transmute it into . No country is known to have done any serious development of this type of weapon.


title: Cobalt-60

text: There is no natural in existence on earth; thus, synthetic is created by bombarding a target with a slow neutron source. Californium-252, moderated through water, can be used for this purpose, as can the neutron flux in a nuclear reactor. The CANDU reactors can be used to activate , by substituting the control rods with cobalt rods. In the United States, it is now being produced in a BWR at Hope Creek Nuclear Generating Station. The cobalt targets are substituted here for a small number of fuel assemblies. Still, over 40% of all single-use medical devices are sterilized using from Bruce nuclear generating station.


title: Cobalt-60

text: After entering a living mammal (such as a human being), some of the is excreted in feces. The remainder is taken up by tissues, mainly the liver, kidneys, and bones, where the prolonged exposure to gamma radiation can cause cancer. Over time, the absorbed cobalt is eliminated in urine.


title: Cobalt-60

text: Cobalt is an element used to make steel. Uncontrolled disposal of in scrap metal is responsible for the radioactivity found in several iron-based products.


title: Cobalt-60

text: Circa 1983, construction was finished of 1700 apartments in Taiwan which were built with steel contaminated with cobalt-60. Approximately 10,000 people occupied these buildings during a 9–20 year period. On average, these people unknowingly received a radiation dose of 0.4 Sv. This large group did not suffer a higher incidence of cancer mortality, as the linear no-threshold model would predict, but suffered a lower cancer mortality than the general Taiwan public. These observations appear to be compatible with the radiation hormesis model.


title: Cobalt-60

text: In August 2012, Petco recalled several models of steel pet food bowls after US Customs and Border Protection determined that they were emitting low levels of radiation. The source of the radiation was determined to be that had contaminated the steel.


title: Cobalt-60

text: In May 2013 a batch of metal-studded belts sold by online retailer ASOS were confiscated and held in a US radioactive storage facility after testing positive for .


title: Cobalt-60

text: In the Samut Prakan radiation accident in 2000, a disused radiotherapy head containing a source was stored at an unsecured location in Bangkok, Thailand and then accidentally sold to scrap collectors. Unaware of the dangers, a junkyard employee dismantled the head and extracted the source, which remained unprotected for a period of days at the junkyard. Ten people, including the scrap collectors and workers at the junkyard, were exposed to high levels of radiation and became ill. Three of the junkyard workers subsequently died as a result of their exposure, which was estimated to be over 6 Gy. Afterward, the source was safely recovered by Thai authorities.


title: Cobalt-60

text: In December 2013, a truck carrying a disused 111 TBq Co teletherapy source from a hospital in Tijuana to a radioactive waste storage center was hijacked at a gas station near Mexico City. The truck was soon recovered, but the thieves had removed the source from its shielding. It was found intact in a nearby field. Despite early reports with lurid headlines asserting that the thieves were "likely doomed", the radiation sickness was mild enough that the suspects were quickly released to police custody, and no one is known to have died from the incident.


title: Cobalt-60

text: In 1957, Chien-Shiung Wu et al. discovered the β-decay process violated parity, implying nature has a handedness.


title: Cobalt-60

text: In the Wu experiment her group aligned radioactive nuclei by cooling the source to low temperatures in a magnetic field. Wu's observation was that more β-rays were emitted in the opposite direction to the nuclear spin. This asymmetry violates parity conservation.


title: Cobalt-60

text: Argentina, Canada and Russia are the largest suppliers of in the world. Both Argentina and Canada have (as of 2022) an all heavy water reactor fleet for power generation. Canada has the CANDU in numerous locations throughout Ontario as well as Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station in New Brunswick, while Argentina has two German supplied heavy water reactors at Atucha nuclear power plant and a Canadian-built CANDU at Embalse Nuclear Power Station. Heavy water reactors are particularly well suited for the production of cobalt-60 because of their excellent neutron economy and because their capacity for online refueling allows targets to be inserted into the reactor core and removed after a predetermined time without the need for cold shutdown. Furthermore the heavy water used as a moderator is commonly held at lower temperatures than the coolant in light water reactors, allowing for a lower speed of neutrons, which increases the neutron cross section and decreases unwanted (n,2n) "knockout" reactions.


title: Star and crescent

text: The star and crescent is an iconographic symbol used in various historical contexts, including as a prominent symbol of the Ottoman Empire, and in contemporary times used as a national symbol for some countries as well as recognized as a symbol of Islam. It was developed in the Greek colony of Byzantium ca. 300 BC, though it became more widely used as the royal emblem of Pontic king Mithradates VI Eupator after he incorporated Byzantium into his kingdom for a short period.


title: Star and crescent

text: During the 5th century, it was present in coins minted by the Persian Sassanian Empire; the symbol was represented in the coins minted across the empire throughout the Middle East for more than 400 years from the 3rd century until the fall of the Sassanians after the Muslim conquest of Persia in the 7th century. The conquering Muslim rulers kept the symbol in their coinage during the early years of the caliphate, as the coins were exact replicas of the Sassanian coins.


title: Star and crescent

text: The symbol is the conjoined representation of a crescent and a star. Both elements have a long prior history in the iconography of the Ancient Near East as representing either the Sun and Moon or the Moon and Venus (Morning Star) (or their divine personifications). It has been suggested that the crescent actually represents Venus or even the sun during an eclipse. Coins with crescent and star symbols represented separately have a longer history, with possible ties to older Mesopotamian iconography. The star, or Sun, is often shown within the arc of the crescent (also called star in crescent, or star within crescent, for disambiguation of depictions of a star and a crescent side by side). In numismatics in particular, the term crescent and pellet is used in cases where the star is simplified to a single dot.


title: Star and crescent

text: The combination is found comparatively rarely in late medieval and early modern heraldry. It rose to prominence with its adoption as the flag and national symbol of the Ottoman Empire and some of its administrative divisions (eyalets and vilayets) and later in the 19th-century Westernizing "tanzimat" (reforms). The Ottoman flag of 1844, with a white "ay-yıldız" (Turkish for "crescent-star") on a red background, continues to be in use as the flag of the Republic of Turkey, with minor modifications. Other states formerly part of the Ottoman Empire also used the symbol, including Libya (1951–1969 and after 2011), Tunisia (1831) and Algeria (1958). The same symbol was used in other national flags introduced during the 20th century, including the flags of Azerbaijan (1918), Pakistan (1947), Malaysia (1948), Singapore (1959), Mauritania (1959), Kashmir (1974), Uzbekistan (1991), Turkmenistan (1991) and Comoros (2001). In the latter 20th century, the star and crescent have acquired a popular interpretation as a "symbol of Islam", occasionally embraced by Arab nationalism or Islamism in the 1970s to 1980s but often rejected as erroneous or unfounded by Muslim commentators in more recent times. Unlike the cross, which is a symbol of Jesus' crucifixion in Christianity, there is no solid link that connects the star and crescent symbol with the concept of Islam. The connotation is widely believed to have come from the flag of the Ottoman Empire, whose prestige as an Islamic empire and caliphate led to the adoption of its state emblem as a symbol of Islam by association. Unicode introduced a "star and crescent" character in its Miscellaneous Symbols block, at U+262A (☪).


title: Star and crescent

text: Crescents appearing together with a star or stars are a common feature of Sumerian iconography, the crescent usually being associated with the moon god Sin (Nanna) and the star with Ishtar (Inanna, i.e. Venus), often placed alongside the sun disk of Shamash.


title: Star and crescent

text: The depiction of the crescent-and-star or "star inside crescent" as it would later develop in Bosporan Kingdom is difficult to trace to Mesopotamian art.


title: Star and crescent

text: Exceptionally, a combination of the crescent of Sin with the five-pointed star of Ishtar, with the star placed "inside" the crescent as in the later Hellenistic-era symbol, placed among numerous other symbols, is found in a boundary stone of Nebuchadnezzar I (12th century BC; found in Nippur by John Henry Haynes in 1896). An example of such an arrangement is also found in the (highly speculative) reconstruction of a fragmentary stele of Ur-Nammu (Third Dynasty of Ur) discovered in the 1920s.


title: Star and crescent

text: Many ancient Greek (classical and hellenistic) and Roman amulets which depict stars and crescent have been found.


title: Star and crescent

text: Mithradates VI Eupator of Pontus (r. 120–63 BC) used an eight rayed star with a crescent moon as his emblem.


title: Star and crescent

text: McGing (1986) notes the association of the star and crescent with Mithradates VI, discussing its appearance on his coins, and its survival in the coins of the Bosporan Kingdom where "[t]he star and crescent appear on Pontic royal coins from the time of Mithradates III and seem to have had oriental significance as a dynastic badge of the Mithridatic family, or the arms of the country of Pontus."


title: Star and crescent

text: Several possible interpretations of the emblem have been proposed. In most of these, the "star" is taken to represent the Sun. The combination of the two symbols has been taken as representing Sun and Moon (and by extension Day and Night), the Zoroastrian "Mah" and "Mithra", or deities arising from Greek-Anatolian-Iranian syncretism, the crescent representing "Mēn Pharnakou" (, the local moon god) and the "star" (Sun) representing Ahuramazda (in "interpretatio graeca" called "Zeus Stratios")


title: Star and crescent

text: By the late Hellenistic or early Roman period, the star and crescent motif had been associated to some degree with Byzantium. If any goddess had a connection with the walls in Constantinople, it was Hecate. Hecate had a cult in Byzantium from the time of its founding. Like Byzas in one legend, she had her origins in Thrace. Hecate was considered the patron goddess of Byzantium because she was said to have saved the city from an attack by Philip of Macedon in 340 BC by the appearance of a bright light in the sky. To commemorate the event the Byzantines erected a statue of the goddess known as the "Lampadephoros" ("torch-bearer" or "torch-bringer").


title: Star and crescent

text: Some Byzantine coins of the 1st century BC and later show the head of Artemis with bow and quiver, and feature a crescent with what appears to be a six-rayed star on the reverse.


title: Star and crescent

text: The moon-goddess Selene is commonly depicted with a crescent moon, often accompanied by two stars (the stars represent Phosphorus, the morning star, and Hesperus, the evening star); sometimes, instead of a crescent, a lunar disc is used. Often a crescent moon rests on her brow, or the cusps of a crescent moon protrude, horn-like, from her head, or from behind her head or shoulders.


title: Star and crescent

text: In the 2nd century, the star-within-crescent is found on the obverse side of Roman coins minted during the rule of Hadrian, Geta, Caracalla and Septimius Severus, in some cases as part of an arrangement of a crescent and seven stars, one or several of which were placed inside the crescent.


title: Star and crescent

text: The star and crescent symbol appears on some coins of the Parthian vassal kingdom of Elymais in the late 1st century AD.


title: Star and crescent

text: The same symbol is present in coins that are possibly associated with Orodes I of Parthia (1st century BC). In the 2nd century AD, some Parthian coins show a simplified "pellet within crescent" symbol.


title: Star and crescent

text: Sassanid rulers also appear to have used crowns featuring a crescent, sphere and crescent, or star and crescent.


title: Star and crescent

text: Use of the star-and-crescent combination apparently goes back to the earlier appearance of a star and a crescent on Parthian coins, first under King Orodes II (1st century BC). In these coins, the two symbols occur separately, on either side of the king's head, and not yet in their combined star-and-crescent form.


title: Star and crescent

text: Such coins are also found further afield in Greater Persia, by the end of the 1st century AD in a coin issues by the Western Satraps ruler Chashtana.


title: Star and crescent

text: This arrangement is likely inherited from its Ancient Near Eastern predecessors; the star and crescent symbols are not frequently found in Achaemenid iconography, but they are present in some cylinder seals of the Achaemenid era.


title: Star and crescent

text: Ayatollahi (2003) attempts to connect the modern adoption as an "Islamic symbol" to Sassanid coins remaining in circulation after the Islamic conquest


title: Star and crescent

text: Coins from the Western Turkic Khaganate had a crescent moon and a star, which held an important place in the worldview of ancient Turks and other peoples of Central Asia.


title: Star and crescent

text: The crescent on its own is used in western heraldry from at least the 13th century, while the star and crescent (or "Sun and Moon") emblem is in use in medieval seals at least from the late 12th century.


title: Star and crescent

text: The crescent in pellet symbol is used in Crusader coins of the 12th century, in some cases duplicated in the four corners of a cross, as a variant of the cross-and-crosslets ("Jerusalem cross").


title: Star and crescent

text: Many Crusader seals and coins show the crescent and the star (or blazing Sun) on either side of the ruler's head (as in the Sassanid tradition), e.g. Bohemond III of Antioch, Richard I of England, Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse. At the same time, the star in crescent is found on the obverse of Crusader coins, e.g. in coins of the County of Tripoli minted under Raymond II or III c. 1140s–1160s show an "eight-rayed star with pellets above crescent".


title: Star and crescent

text: The star and crescent combination appears in attributed arms from the early 14th century, possibly in a coat of arms of c. 1330, possibly attributed to John Chrysostom,


title: Star and crescent

text: and in the "Wernigeroder Wappenbuch" (late 15th century) attributed to one of the three Magi, named "Balthasar of Tarsus".


title: Star and crescent

text: Crescents (without the star) increase in popularity in early modern heraldry in Europe. "Siebmachers Wappenbuch" (1605) records 48 coats of arms of German families which include one or several crescents.


title: Star and crescent

text: A star and crescent symbolizing Croatia was commonly found on 13th-century "banovac" coins in the Kingdom of Slavonia, with a two-barred cross symbolizing the Kingdom of Hungary.


title: Star and crescent

text: In the late 16th century, the Korenić-Neorić Armorial shows a white star and crescent on a red field as the coat of arms of "Illyria".


title: Star and crescent

text: The star and crescent combination remains rare prior to its adoption by the Ottoman Empire in the second half of the 18th century.


title: Star and crescent

text: While the crescent on its own is depicted as an emblem used on Islamic war flags from the medieval period, at least from the 13th century although it does not seem to have been in frequent use until the 14th or 15th century, the star and crescent in an Islamic context is more rare in the medieval period, but may occasionally be found in depictions of flags from the 14th century onward.


title: Star and crescent

text: The adoption of star and crescent as the Ottoman state symbol started during the reign of Mustafa III (1757–1774) and its use became well-established during the periods of Abdul Hamid I (1774–1789) and Selim III (1789–1807).


title: Star and crescent

text: A "" from 1793 states that the ships in the Ottoman navy have that flag, and various other documents from earlier and later years mention its use.


title: Star and crescent

text: The ultimate source of the emblem is unclear. It is mostly derived from the star-and-crescent symbol used by the city of Constantinople in antiquity, possibly by association with the crescent design (without the star) used in Turkish flags since before 1453.


title: Star and crescent

text: With the Tanzimat reforms in the 19th century, flags were redesigned in the style of the European armies of the day. The flag of the Ottoman Navy was made red, as red was to be the flag of secular institutions and green of religious ones. As the reforms abolished all the various flags (standards) of the Ottoman pashaliks, beyliks and emirates, a single new Ottoman national flag was designed to replace them. The result was the red flag with the white crescent moon and star, which is the precursor to the modern flag of Turkey. A plain red flag was introduced as the civil ensign for all Ottoman subjects.


title: Star and crescent

text: The white crescent with an eight-pointed star on a red field is depicted as the flag of a "Turkish Man of War" in Colton's "Delineation of Flags of All Nations" (1862). Steenbergen's "" of the same year shows a six-pointed star. A plate in "Webster's Unabridged" of 1882 shows the flag with an eight-pointed star labelled "Turkey, Man of war". The five-pointed star seems to have been present alongside these variants from at least 1857.


title: Star and crescent

text: In addition to Ottoman imperial insignias, symbols appears on the flag of Bosnia Eyalet (1580–1867) and Bosnia Vilayet (1867–1908), as well as the flag of 1831 Bosnian revolt, while the symbols appeared on some representations of medieval Bosnian coat of arms too.


title: Star and crescent

text: In the late 19th century, "Star and Crescent" came to be used as a metaphor for Ottoman rule in British literature. The increasingly ubiquitous fashion of using the star and crescent symbol in the ornamentation of Ottoman mosques and minarets led to a gradual association of the symbol with Islam in general in western Orientalism. The "Red Crescent" emblem was used by volunteers of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) as early as 1877 during the Russo-Turkish War; it was officially adopted in 1929.


title: Star and crescent

text: After the foundation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, the new Turkish state maintained the last flag of the Ottoman Empire. Proportional standardisations were introduced in the Turkish Flag Law () of May 29, 1936.


title: Star and crescent

text: Besides the most prominent example of Turkey (see Flag of Turkey), a number of other Ottoman successor states adopted the design during the 20th century, including the Emirate of Cyrenaica and the Kingdom of Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, and the proposed Arab Islamic Republic.


title: Star and crescent

text: The Ottoman flag of 1844 with a white ""ay-yıldız"" (Turkish for "crescent-star") on a red background continues to be in use as the flag of the Republic of Turkey with minor modifications.


title: Star and crescent

text: The modern emblem of Turkey shows the star outside the arc of the crescent, as it were a "realistic" depiction of a conjunction of Moon and Venus, while in the 19th century, the Ottoman star and crescent was occasionally still drawn as the star-within-crescent.


title: Star and crescent

text: By contrast, the designs of both the flags of Algeria and Tunisia (as well as Mauritania and Pakistan) place the star within the crescent.


title: Star and crescent

text: The same symbol was used in other national flags introduced during the 20th century, including the flags of Azerbaijan (1918, re-introduced 1991), the Rif Republic (1921), Pakistan (1947), Malaysia (1948), Mauritania (1959),


title: Star and crescent

text: Kashmir (1974) and the partially recognized states of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (1976) and Northern Cyprus (1983). The symbol also may represent flag of cities or emirates such as the emirate of Umm Al-Quwain.


title: Star and crescent

text: By the mid-20th century, the symbol came to be re-interpreted as the symbol of Islam or the Muslim community.


title: Star and crescent

text: This symbolism was embraced by movements of Arab nationalism or Islamism in the 1970s too, such as the proposed Arab Islamic Republic (1974) and the American Nation of Islam (1973).


title: Star and crescent

text: Cyril Glassé in his "The New Encyclopedia of Islam" (2001 edition, s.v. "Moon") states that "in the language of conventional symbols, the crescent and star have become the symbols of Islam as much as the cross is the symbol of Christianity."


title: Star and crescent

text: By contrast, "Crescent" magazine — a religious Islamic publication — quoted without giving names that "Many Muslim scholars reject using the crescent moon as a symbol of Islam".


title: Star and crescent

text: On February 28, 2017, it was announced by the Qira County government in Hotan Prefecture, Xinjiang, China that those who reported others for stitching the 'star and crescent moon' insignia on their clothing or personal items or having the words 'East Turkestan' on their mobile phone case, purse or other jewelry, would be eligible for cash payments.


title: Star and crescent

text: The star and crescent as a traditional heraldic charge is in continued use in numerous municipal coats of arms (notably the based on the Leliwa (Tarnowski) coat of arms in the case of Polish municipalities).


title: Star and crescent

text: In rugby union, Saracens F.C. incorporates the crescent and star in its crest. Drogheda United F.C., Portsmouth F.C., and S.U. Sintrense all borrow the crescent and star from their respective towns' coats of arms. Mohammedan SC in Kolkata, India also incorporates the symbol in its crest.


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (Caroline Amelia Elizabeth; 17 May 1768 – 7 August 1821) was Queen of the United Kingdom and Hanover from 29 January 1820 until her death in 1821, being the estranged wife of King George IV. She was Princess of Wales from 1795 to 1820.


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: The daughter of Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick, and Princess Augusta of Great Britain, Caroline was engaged in 1794 to her cousin George, Prince of Wales, whom she had never met. He was already illegally married to Maria Fitzherbert. George and Caroline married the following year but separated shortly after the birth of their only child, Princess Charlotte, in 1796. By 1806, rumours that Caroline had taken lovers and had an illegitimate child led to an investigation into her private life. The dignitaries who led the investigation concluded that there was "no foundation" to the rumours, but Caroline's access to her daughter was nonetheless restricted. In 1814, Caroline moved to Italy, where she employed Bartolomeo Pergami as a servant. Pergami soon became Caroline's closest companion, and it was widely assumed that they were lovers. In 1817, Caroline was devastated when Charlotte died in childbirth. She heard the news from a passing courier as George had refused to write and tell her. He was determined to divorce Caroline, and set up a second investigation to collect evidence of her adultery.


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: In January 1820, George became King of the United Kingdom and Hanover, and Caroline nominally became queen consort. George insisted on a divorce from Caroline, which she refused. A legal divorce was possible but difficult to obtain. Caroline returned to Britain to assert her position as queen. She was wildly popular with the British people, who sympathised with her and despised the new king for his immoral behaviour. On the basis of the loose evidence collected against her, George attempted to divorce Caroline by introducing the Pains and Penalties Bill 1820 to Parliament, but he and the bill were so unpopular, and Caroline so popular with the masses, that it was withdrawn by the Liverpool ministry. The King barred Caroline from his coronation in July 1821. She fell ill in London and died three weeks later. Her funeral procession passed through London on its way to her native Braunschweig, where she was buried.


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: Caroline was born a princess of Braunschweig, known in English as "Brunswick", with the courtesy title of Duchess of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, on 17 May 1768 at Braunschweig in Germany. She was the daughter of Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, and his wife Princess Augusta of Great Britain, eldest sister of King George III.


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: Caroline was brought up in a difficult family situation. Her mother resented her father's open adultery with Baroness Luise von Hertefeld, whom he had installed as his official mistress in 1777, and Caroline was later to confide to Lady Charlotte Campbell that she was often tired of being a "shuttlecock" between her parents, as whenever she was civil to one of them, she was scolded by the other.


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: She was educated by governesses, but the only subject in which she was given a higher education was music. From 1783 until 1791, Countess Eleonore von Münster was her governess, and won her affection, but never managed to teach her to spell correctly, as Caroline preferred to dictate to a secretary. Caroline could understand English and French, but her father admitted that she was lacking in education.


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: According to Caroline's mother, who was British, all German princesses learned English in the hope that they would be chosen to marry George, Prince of Wales, George III's eldest son and heir apparent and Caroline's first cousin.


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: John Stanley, later 1st Baron Stanley of Alderley, saw her in 1781, and noted that she was an attractive girl with curly, fair hair. In 1784, she was described as a beauty, and two years later, Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau described her as "most amiable, lively, playful, witty and handsome".


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: Caroline was brought up with extremely limited contact with the opposite sex even by the standards of her own time. She was reportedly constantly supervised by her governess and elder ladies, restricted to her room when the family was entertaining and ordered to keep away from the windows. She was normally refused permission to attend balls and court functions, and when allowed, she was forbidden to dance. Abbé Baron commented during the winter of 1789–90: "She is supervised with the greatest severity, as they claim she is already aware of what she is missing. I doubt if the torches of Hymen will illuminate for her. Although always attired with style and elegance, she is never allowed to dance", and that as soon as the first dance began, she was forced to sit down at the whist table with three old ladies.


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: A rare occasion was the wedding of her elder brother Charles, when she was finally allowed to dance, though only with the groom and her new brother-in-law, the Prince of Orange – she was, however, still forbidden to dine alone with her brother.


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: Her secluded isolation tormented her, which was demonstrated when she was later again banned from attending a ball. She simulated an illness so severe that her parents left the ball to see her. When they arrived, she claimed to be in labour and forced them to send for a midwife. When the midwife arrived, she stopped her simulation and asked her mother: "Now, Madam, will you keep me another time from a ball?"


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: Her mother early favoured a match between one of her children and a member of her English family, and when her nephew Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany visited Brunswick in June 1781, she lamented the fact that Caroline, because of her age, could not be present very often. Caroline was given a number of proposals from 1782 onward. Marriage with the Prince of Orange, Prince George of Hesse-Darmstadt, Charles, Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and the second son of the Margrave of Baden were all suggested, while her mother and father supported an English and a Prussian Prince respectively, but none came to fruition. Caroline was later to state that her father had forbidden her to marry a man she had fallen in love with because of his low status. The identity of this man is not clear, but contemporaries point out an officer who was referred to at the time as the "Handsome Irishman" who lived in Brunswick, and with whom Caroline was said to have been in love. There was also a rumour that Caroline had given birth at the age of fifteen.


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: Though she was not allowed to socialise with men, she was allowed to ride, and during riding, she visited the cottages of the peasantry. She had done this already as a child, during which she had met children to play with, and as an adult, one of these visits allegedly led to a pregnancy. There is no confirmation of this rumour, but it was well known during her life, and referred to as a reason for why she married at an older age than was usual, despite being regarded as good-looking and having been given so many proposals.


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: In 1794, Caroline and the Prince of Wales were engaged. They had never met—George had agreed to marry her because he was heavily in debt, and if he contracted a marriage with an eligible princess, Parliament would increase his allowance. Caroline seemed eminently suitable: she was a Protestant of royal birth, and the marriage would ally Brunswick and Britain. Although Brunswick was only a small country, Britain was at war with revolutionary France and so was eager to obtain allies on the European mainland. Brunswick was ruled by Caroline's father, the esteemed soldier Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick, who himself had married Princess Augusta, the sister of George III. On 20 November 1794, Lord Malmesbury arrived at Brunswick to escort Caroline to her new life in Britain. In his diary, Malmesbury recorded his reservations about Caroline's suitability as a bride for the prince: she lacked judgement, decorum and tact, spoke her mind too readily, acted indiscreetly, and often neglected to wash, or change her dirty clothes. He went on to say that she had "some natural but no acquired morality, and no strong innate notions of its value and necessity". However, Malmesbury was impressed by her bravery; on the journey to England, the party heard cannon fire, as they were not far from the French lines. While Caroline's mother, who was accompanying them to the coast as chaperone, was concerned for their safety, Caroline was unfazed.


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: On 28 March 1795, Caroline and Malmesbury left Cuxhaven on the "Jupiter". Delayed by poor weather, they landed a week later, on Easter Sunday, 5 April, at Greenwich. There, she met Frances Villiers, Countess of Jersey, George's mistress, who had been appointed Caroline's Lady of the Bedchamber. Smith concludes that:


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: On meeting his future wife for the first time, George called for a glass of brandy. He was evidently disappointed. Similarly, Caroline told Malmesbury, "[the Prince is] very fat and he's nothing like as handsome as his portrait." At dinner that evening, the Prince was appalled by Caroline's garrulous nature and her jibes at the expense of Lady Jersey. She was upset and disappointed by George's obvious partiality for Lady Jersey over her.


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: Caroline and George were married on 8 April 1795 at the Chapel Royal, St. James's Palace, in London. At the ceremony, George was drunk. He regarded Caroline as unattractive and unhygienic, and told Malmesbury that he suspected that she was not a virgin when they married. He, of course, was not. He had himself already secretly married Maria Fitzherbert, but his marriage to Fitzherbert violated the Royal Marriages Act 1772 and so was not legally valid.


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: In a letter to a friend, the prince claimed that the couple only had sexual intercourse three times: twice the first night of the marriage, and once the second night. He wrote, "it required no small [effort] to conquer my aversion and overcome the disgust of her person." Caroline claimed George was so drunk that he "passed the greatest part of his bridal night under the grate, where he fell, and where I left him".


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: Nine months after the wedding, Caroline gave birth to Princess Charlotte, George's only legitimate child, at Carlton House on 7 January 1796. Charlotte was second in the line of succession to the British throne after her father. Just three days after Charlotte's birth, George made out a new will. He left all his property to "Maria Fitzherbert, my wife", while to Caroline he left one shilling.


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: Gossip about Caroline and George's troubled marriage was already circulating. The newspapers claimed that Lady Jersey opened, read and distributed the contents of Caroline's private letters. She despised Lady Jersey and could not visit or travel anywhere without George's permission. The press vilified George for his extravagance and luxury at a time of war and portrayed Caroline as a wronged wife. She was cheered in public and gained plaudits for her "winning familiarity" and easy, open nature. George was dismayed at her popularity and his own unpopularity, and felt trapped in a loveless marriage with a woman he loathed. He wanted a separation.


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: In April 1796, George wrote to Caroline, "We have unfortunately been oblig'd to acknowledge to each other that we cannot find happiness in our union. ... Let me therefore beg you to make the best of a situation unfortunate for us both." In June, Lady Jersey resigned as Caroline's Lady of the Bedchamber. George and Caroline were already living separately, and in August 1797 Caroline moved to a private residence: The Vicarage or Old Rectory in Charlton, London. Later, she moved to Montagu House in Blackheath. No longer constrained by her husband, or, according to rumour, her marital vows, she entertained whomever she pleased. She flirted with Admiral Sir Sidney Smith and Captain Thomas Manby, and may have had a brief relationship with the politician George Canning.


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: Charlotte was placed in the care of a governess, in a mansion near Montagu House in the summers, and Caroline visited her often. It seems that a single daughter was not sufficient to sate Caroline's maternal instincts, and she adopted eight or nine poor children who were fostered out to people in the district. In 1802, she adopted a three-month-old boy, William Austin, and took him into her home. By 1805, Caroline had fallen out with her near neighbours, Sir John and Lady Douglas, who claimed that Caroline had sent them obscene and harassing letters. Lady Douglas accused Caroline of infidelity, and alleged that William Austin was Caroline's illegitimate son.


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: In 1806, a secret commission was set up, known as the "Delicate Investigation", to examine Lady Douglas's claims. The commission comprised four of the most eminent men in the country: Prime Minister Lord Grenville, the Lord Chancellor Lord Erskine, the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales Lord Ellenborough and the Home Secretary Lord Spencer. Lady Douglas testified that Caroline herself had admitted to her in 1802 that she was pregnant, and that Austin was her son. She further alleged that Caroline had been rude about the royal family, touched her in an inappropriately sexual way, and had admitted that any woman friendly with a man was sure to become his lover. In addition to Smith, Manby and Canning, artist Thomas Lawrence and Henry Hood, son of Lord Hood, were also mentioned as potential paramours. Caroline's servants could or would not confirm that these gentlemen were her lovers, nor that she had been pregnant, and said that the child had been brought to Caroline's house by his true mother, Sophia Austin. Sophia was summoned before the commissioners, and testified that the child was hers.


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: The commissioners decided that there was "no foundation" for the allegations, but despite being a supposedly secret investigation, it proved impossible to prevent gossip from spreading, and news of the investigation leaked to the press. Caroline's conduct with her gentlemen friends was considered improper, but there was no direct proof that she had been guilty of anything more than flirtation. Perhaps Caroline had told Lady Douglas that she was pregnant out of frustrated maternal desire, or as part of a foolish prank that, unfortunately for her, backfired. Later in the year, Caroline received further bad news as Brunswick was overrun by the French, and her father was killed in the battle of Jena-Auerstadt. Her mother and brother, Frederick William, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, fled to England. Caroline had wanted to return to Brunswick and leave Britain behind her, but with much of Europe controlled by the French she had no safe haven to run to.


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: During the Delicate Investigation, Caroline was not permitted to see her daughter, and afterwards her visits were essentially restricted to once a week and only in the presence of Caroline's own mother, the Dowager Duchess of Brunswick. Meetings took place at either Blackheath or an apartment in Kensington Palace designated for Caroline's use.


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: By the end of 1811, King George III had become permanently insane, and the Prince of Wales was appointed as Regent. He restricted Caroline's access to Princess Charlotte further, and Caroline became more socially isolated as members of high society chose to patronise George's extravagant parties rather than hers. She moved her London residence to Connaught House in Bayswater. Caroline needed a powerful ally to help her oppose George's increasing ability to prevent her from seeing her daughter. In league with Henry Brougham, an ambitious Whig politician who favoured reform, she began a propaganda campaign against George. George countered by leaking Lady Douglas's testimony from the "Delicate Investigation", which Brougham repudiated by leaking the testimonies of the servants and Mrs Austin. Charlotte favoured her mother's point of view, as did most of the public. Jane Austen wrote of Caroline: "Poor woman, I shall support her as long as I can, because she "is" a Woman and because I hate her Husband."


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: In 1814, after Napoleon's defeat, nobility from throughout Europe attended celebrations in London, but Caroline was excluded. George's relationship with his daughter was also deteriorating, as Charlotte sought greater freedom from her father's strictures. On 12 July, he informed Charlotte that she would henceforth be confined at Cranbourne Lodge, Windsor, that her household would be replaced, and that she could have no visitors except her grandmother, Queen Charlotte, once a week. Horrified, Charlotte ran away to her mother's house in Bayswater. After an anxious night, Charlotte was eventually persuaded to return to her father by Brougham, since legally she could be placed in her father's care and there was a danger of public disorder against George, which might prejudice Charlotte's position if she continued to disobey him.


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: Caroline, unhappy at her situation and treatment in Britain, negotiated a deal with the Foreign Secretary, Lord Castlereagh. She agreed to leave the country in exchange for an annual allowance of £35,000. Both Brougham and Charlotte were dismayed by Caroline's decision, as they both realised that Caroline's absence would strengthen George's power and weaken theirs. On 8 August 1814, Caroline left Britain.


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: After a two-week visit to Brunswick, Caroline headed for Italy through Switzerland. Along the way, possibly in Milan, she hired Bartolomeo Pergami as a servant. Pergami soon rose to the head of Caroline's household, and managed to get his sister, Angelica, Countess of Oldi, appointed as Caroline's lady-in-waiting. In mid-1815, Caroline bought a house, Villa d'Este, on the shores of Lake Como, even though her finances were stretched.


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: From early 1816, she and Pergami went on a cruise around the Mediterranean, visiting Napoleon's former palace on Elba, and Sicily, where Pergami obtained the Order of Malta and a barony. By this time, Caroline and Pergami were openly eating together, and it was widely rumoured that they were lovers. They visited Tunis, Malta, Milos, Athens, Corinth, Constantinople, and Nazareth. Caroline entered Jerusalem riding on a donkey in a convoy of camels. Pergami was made a Knight of the Order of Saint Lazarus. Caroline instituted the Order of Saint Caroline, nominating Pergami its Grand Master. In August, they returned to Italy, stopping at Rome to visit Pope Pius VII.


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: By this time, gossip about Caroline was everywhere. Lord Byron wrote to his publisher that Caroline and Pergami were lovers, and Sir Francis Ronalds described and made a sketch of their sleeping arrangements in Karlsruhe. Baron Friedrich Ompteda, a Hanoverian spy, bribed one of Caroline's servants so that he could search her bedroom for proof of adultery. He found none. By August 1817, Caroline's debts were growing, so she sold Villa d'Este and moved to the smaller Villa Caprile near Pesaro. Pergami's mother, brother and daughter, but not his wife, joined Caroline's household.


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: The previous year, Caroline's daughter, Princess Charlotte, had married Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and the future of the British monarchy looked bright. Then tragedy struck: in November 1817, Charlotte died after giving birth to her only child, a stillborn son. For the most part, Charlotte had been immensely popular with the public, and her death was a blow to the country. George refused to write to Caroline to inform her, leaving it for their son-in-law Leopold to do, but Leopold was deep in grief and delayed writing. George did, however, write to the pope of the tragedy, and by chance the courier carrying the letter passed by Pesaro, and so it was that Caroline heard the devastating news. Caroline had lost her daughter, but she had also lost any chance of regaining position through the succession of her daughter to the throne.


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: George was determined to press ahead with a divorce and set up a commission chaired by the Vice-Chancellor John Leach to gather evidence of Caroline's adultery. Leach sent three commissioners to Milan to interrogate Caroline's former servants, including Theodore Majocchi and Caroline's maid, Louise Demont. In London, Brougham was still acting as Caroline's agent. Concerned that the "Milan commission" might threaten Caroline, he sent his brother James to Caroline's villa in the hope of establishing whether George had any grounds for divorce. James wrote back to his brother of Caroline and Pergami, "they are to all appearances man and wife, never was anything so obvious." The Milan commission was assembling more and more evidence, and by 1819 Caroline was worried. She informed James Brougham that she would agree to a divorce in exchange for money. However, at this time in England divorce by mutual consent was illegal; it was only possible to divorce if one of the partners admitted or was found guilty of adultery. Caroline said it was "impossible" for her to admit that, so the Broughams advised that only formal separation was possible. Both keen to avoid publicity, the Broughams and the Government discussed a deal where Caroline would be called by a lesser title, such as "Duchess of Cornwall" rather than "Princess of Wales". As the negotiations continued at the end of 1819, Caroline travelled to France, which gave rise to speculation that she was on her way back to England. In January 1820, however, she made plans to return to Italy, but then on 29 January 1820 George III died. Caroline's husband became king and, at least nominally, she was queen of the United Kingdom.


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: Instead of being treated like a queen, Caroline found that her estranged husband's accession paradoxically made her position worse. On visiting Rome, Pope Pius VII refused her an audience, and the pope's minister Cardinal Consalvi insisted that she be greeted only as a duchess of Brunswick, and not as a queen. In an attempt to assert her rights, she made plans to return to Britain. The King demanded that his ministers get rid of her. He successfully persuaded them to remove her name from the liturgy of the Church of England, but they would not agree to a divorce because they feared the effect of a public trial. The government was weak and unpopular, and a trial detailing salacious details of both Caroline's and George's separate love lives was certain to destabilise it further. Rather than run the risk, the government entered into negotiations with Caroline, and offered her an increased annuity of £50,000 if she stayed abroad.


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: By the beginning of June 1820, Caroline had travelled north from Italy, and was at St Omer near Calais. Acting on the advice of Alderman Matthew Wood and her lady-in-waiting Lady Anne Hamilton, she rejected the government's offer. She bid farewell to Pergami, and embarked for England. When she arrived on 5 June, riots broke out in support of her. Caroline was a figurehead for the growing Radical movement that demanded political reform and opposed the unpopular king. Nevertheless, the King still adamantly desired a divorce, and the following day, he submitted the evidence gathered by the Milan commission to Parliament in two green bags. On 15 June, the guards in the King's Mews mutinied. The mutiny was contained, but the government was fearful of further unrest. Examination of the bags of evidence was delayed as Parliament debated the form of the investigation, but eventually, on 27 June, they were opened and examined in secret by 15 peers. The peers considered the contents scandalous, and a week later, after their report to the House, the government introduced a bill in Parliament, the Pains and Penalties Bill 1820, to strip Caroline of the title of queen and dissolve her marriage. It was claimed that Caroline had committed adultery with a low-born man: Bartolomeo Pergami. Various witnesses, such as Theodore Majocchi, were called during the reading of the bill, which was effectively a public trial of the Queen. The trial caused a sensation, as details of Caroline's familiarity with Pergami were revealed. Witnesses said the couple had slept in the same room, kissed, and been seen together in a state of undress. The bill passed the House of Lords, but was not submitted to the House of Commons as there was little prospect that the Commons would pass it. To her friends, Caroline joked that she had indeed committed adultery once—with the husband of Mrs. Fitzherbert, the King.


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: Even during the trial, the Queen remained immensely popular, as witnessed by over 800 petitions and nearly a million signatures that favoured her cause. As a figurehead of the opposition movement demanding reform, many revolutionary pronouncements were made in Caroline's name.


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: But with the end of the trial her alliance with the radicals came to an end. The government again extended the offer of £50,000 a year, this time without preconditions, and Caroline accepted.


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: On 5 May 1821, Napoleon died on St Helena. Sir Edmund Nagle informed George, "Sir, your bitterest enemy is dead". He replied, "Is she, by God!".


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: Despite the King's best attempts, Caroline retained a strong popularity among the masses, and pressed ahead with plans to attend the coronation service on 19 July 1821 as queen. Lord Liverpool told Caroline that she should not go to the service, but she turned up anyway. George had Caroline turned away from the coronation at the doors of Westminster Abbey. Refused entry at both the doors to the East Cloister and the doors to the West Cloister, Caroline attempted to enter via Westminster Hall, where many guests were gathered before the service began. A witness described how the Queen stood at the door fuming as bayonets were held under her chin until the deputy lord chamberlain had the doors slammed in her face. Caroline then proceeded back to an entrance near Poets' Corner, where she was met by Sir Robert Inglis, who held the office of "Gold Staff". Inglis persuaded her to return to her carriage, and she left. Caroline lost support through her exhibition at the coronation; the crowds jeered her as she rode away, and even Brougham recorded his distaste at her undignified behaviour.


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: The night following Caroline's failed attempt to attend her husband's coronation, she fell ill and took a large dose of milk of magnesia and some drops of laudanum. Over the next three weeks she suffered more and more pain as her condition deteriorated. She realised she was nearing death and put her affairs in order. Her papers, letters, memoirs, and notebooks were burned. She wrote a new will, and settled her funeral arrangements: she was to be buried in her native Brunswick in a tomb bearing the inscription "Here lies Caroline, the Injured ". She died at Brandenburg House in Hammersmith at 10:25 p.m. on 7 August 1821 at the age of 53. Her physicians thought she had an intestinal obstruction, but she may have had cancer, and there were rumours at the time that she had been poisoned.


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: Afraid that a procession of the funeral bier through London could spark public unrest, Lord Liverpool decided the Queen's cortège would avoid the city, passing to the north on the way to Harwich and Brunswick. The crowd accompanying the procession was incensed and blocked the intended route with barricades to force a new route through Westminster and London. The scene soon descended into chaos; the soldiers forming the honour guard opened fire and rode through the crowd with drawn sabres. People in the crowd threw cobblestones and bricks at the soldiers, and two members of the public—Richard Honey, a carpenter, and George Francis, a bricklayer—were killed. Eventually, Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sir Robert Baker, ordered that the official route be abandoned, and the cortège passed through the city. As a result, Baker was dismissed from office.


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: The final route (in heavy rain) took the following course: Hammersmith, Kensington (blocked), Kensington Gore (blocked), Hyde Park, Park Lane (blocked), return to Hyde Park where soldiers forced the gates open, Cumberland Gate (blocked), Edgware Road, Tottenham Court Road, Drury Lane, the Strand, and from there through the City of London, then by way of Romford and Chelmsford to Colchester. The coffin was kept overnight at St Peter's Church, Colchester, where Caroline's executors tried unsuccessfully to replace the official inscription plate with one including the phrase "Injured Queen of England". The next day the coffin was taken to the seaport of Harwich, and placed on a ship bound for Germany. Brunswick Cathedral is Caroline's final resting place.


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: In 1822 the publishers of the newspaper "John Bull" were found guilty over a series of libels published in the Queen's lifetime, including one that alluded to her as "a shameless woman". It was alleged the libels had embittered the Queen and shortened her life.


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: The story of Caroline's marriage to George and her battle to be recognised as queen served as the basis for the 1996 BBC docudrama "A Royal Scandal" with Susan Lynch as Caroline and Richard E. Grant as George IV. The 2008 radio play "The People's Princess", with Alex Jennings as George IV and Rebecca Saire as Caroline, drew parallels with the marriage and divorce of Charles, Prince of Wales (later Charles III), and Diana, Princess of Wales. Caroline is the subject of Richard Condon's 1977 novel "The Abandoned Woman".


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: The royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom are impaled with her father's arms as Duke of Brunswick. The arms were Quarterly of twelve, 1st, Or, a semé of hearts Gules, a lion rampant Azure (Lüneburg); 2nd, Gules, two lions passant guardant Or (Brunswick); 3rd, Azure, a lion rampant Argent crowned Or (Eberstein); 4th, Gules a lion rampant Or, within a border componé Argent and Azure (Homburg); 5th, Or, a lion rampant Gules crowned Azure (Diepholz); 6th, Gules, a lion rampant Or (Lauterberg); 7th, Per fess, in chief Or, two bears' paws erect Sable (Hoya), in the base a gyronny, Argent and Azure (Old Bruckhausen); 8th, Azure, an eagle displayed Argent, langued, beaked and membered Gules (Diepholz eagle); 9th, Chequy Argent and Gules (Hohnstein); 10th, Argent, a stag's attire in bend Gules (Regenstein); 11th, Argent, a stag trippant Sable (); 12th, Argent, a stag's attire in bend sinister Sable (Blankenburg).


title: Caroline of Brunswick

text: As Princess of Wales she used the arms of her husband (the royal arms with a label of three points Argent) impaled with those of her father, the whole surmounted by a coronet of the heir apparent.


title: Vaccination

text: Vaccination is the administration of a vaccine to help the immune system develop immunity from a disease. Vaccines contain a microorganism or virus in a weakened, live or killed state, or proteins or toxins from the organism. In stimulating the body's adaptive immunity, they help prevent sickness from an infectious disease. When a sufficiently large percentage of a population has been vaccinated, herd immunity results. Herd immunity protects those who may be immunocompromised and cannot get a vaccine because even a weakened version would harm them. The effectiveness of vaccination has been widely studied and verified. Vaccination is the most effective method of preventing infectious diseases; widespread immunity due to vaccination is largely responsible for the worldwide eradication of smallpox and the elimination of diseases such as polio and tetanus from much of the world. However, some diseases, such as measles outbreaks in America, have seen rising cases due to relatively low vaccination rates in the 2010s – attributed, in part, to vaccine hesitancy. According to the World Health Organization, vaccination prevents 3.5–5 million deaths per year.


title: Vaccination

text: The first disease people tried to prevent by inoculation was most likely smallpox, with the first recorded use of variolation occurring in the 16th century in China. It was also the first disease for which a vaccine was produced. Although at least six people had used the same principles years earlier, the smallpox vaccine was invented in 1796 by English physician Edward Jenner. He was the first to publish evidence that it was effective and to provide advice on its production. Louis Pasteur furthered the concept through his work in microbiology. The immunization was called "vaccination" because it was derived from a virus affecting cows ( 'cow'). Smallpox was a contagious and deadly disease, causing the deaths of 20–60% of infected adults and over 80% of infected children. When smallpox was finally eradicated in 1979, it had already killed an estimated 300–500 million people in the 20th century.


title: Vaccination

text: "Vaccination" and "immunization" have a similar meaning in everyday language. This is distinct from inoculation, which uses unweakened live pathogens. Vaccination efforts have been met with some reluctance on scientific, ethical, political, medical safety, and religious grounds, although no major religions oppose vaccination, and some consider it an obligation due to the potential to save lives. In the United States, people may receive compensation for alleged injuries under the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. Early success brought widespread acceptance, and mass vaccination campaigns have greatly reduced the incidence of many diseases in numerous geographic regions. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists vaccination as one of the ten great public health achievements of the 20th century in the U.S.


title: Vaccination

text: Vaccines are a way of artificially activating the immune system to protect against infectious disease. The activation occurs through priming the immune system with an immunogen. Stimulating immune responses with an infectious agent is known as "immunization". Vaccination includes various ways of administering immunogens.


title: Vaccination

text: Most vaccines are administered before a patient has contracted a disease to help increase future protection. However, some vaccines are administered after the patient already has contracted a disease. Vaccines given after exposure to smallpox are reported to offer some protection from disease or may reduce the severity of disease. The first rabies immunization was given by Louis Pasteur to a child after he was bitten by a rabid dog. Since its discovery, the rabies vaccine has been proven effective in preventing rabies in humans when administered several times over 14 days along with rabies immune globulin and wound care. Other examples include experimental AIDS, cancer and Alzheimer's disease vaccines. Such immunizations aim to trigger an immune response more rapidly and with less harm than natural infection.


title: Vaccination

text: Most vaccines are given by injection as they are not absorbed reliably through the intestines. Live attenuated polio, rotavirus, some typhoid, and some cholera vaccines are given orally to produce immunity in the bowel. While vaccination provides a lasting effect, it usually takes several weeks to develop. This differs from passive immunity (the transfer of antibodies, such as in breastfeeding), which has immediate effect.


title: Vaccination

text: A vaccine failure is when an organism contracts a disease in spite of being vaccinated against it. Primary vaccine failure occurs when an organism's immune system does not produce antibodies when first vaccinated. Vaccines can fail when several series are given and fail to produce an immune response. The term "vaccine failure" does not necessarily imply that the vaccine is defective. Most vaccine failures are simply from individual variations in immune response.


title: Vaccination

text: The term "inoculation" is often used interchangeably with "vaccination." However, while related, the terms are not synonymous. Vaccination is treatment of an individual with an attenuated (i.e. less virulent) pathogen or other immunogen, whereas inoculation, also called variolation in the context of smallpox prophylaxis, is treatment with unattenuated variola virus taken from a pustule or scab of a smallpox patient into the superficial layers of the skin, commonly the upper arm. Variolation was often done 'arm-to-arm' or, less effectively, 'scab-to-arm', and often caused the patient to become infected with smallpox, which in some cases resulted in severe disease.


title: Vaccination

text: Some vaccines, like the smallpox vaccine, prevent infection. Their use results in sterilizing immunity and can help eradicate a disease if there is no animal reserve. Other vaccines, including those for , help to (temporarily) lower the chance of severe disease for individuals, without necessarily reducing the probability of becoming infected.


title: Vaccination

text: Just like any medication or procedure, no vaccine can be 100% safe or effective for everyone because each person's body can react differently. While minor side effects, such as soreness or low grade fever, are relatively common, serious side effects are very rare and occur in about 1 out of every 100,000 vaccinations and typically involve allergic reactions that can cause hives or difficulty breathing. However, vaccines are the safest they ever have been in history and each vaccine undergoes rigorous clinical trials to ensure their safety and efficacy before approval by authorities such as the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).


title: Vaccination

text: Prior to human testing, vaccines are tested on cell cultures and the results modelled to assess how they will interact with the immune system. During the next round of testing, researchers study vaccines in animals, including mice, rabbits, guinea pigs, and monkeys. Vaccines that pass each of these stages of testing are then approved by the public health safety authority (FDA in the United States) to start a three-phase series of human testing, advancing to higher phases only if they are deemed safe and effective at the previous phase. The people in these trials participate voluntarily and are required to prove they understand the purpose of the study and the potential risks.


title: Vaccination

text: During phase I trials, a vaccine is tested in a group of about 20 people with the primary goal of assessing the vaccine's safety. Phase II trials expand the testing to include 50 to several hundred people. During this stage, the vaccine's safety continues to be evaluated and researchers also gather data on the effectiveness and the ideal dose of the vaccine. Vaccines determined to be safe and efficacious then advance to phase III trials, which focuses on the efficacy of the vaccine in hundreds to thousands of volunteers. This phase can take several years to complete and researchers use this opportunity to compare the vaccinated volunteers to those who have not been vaccinated to highlight any true reactions to the vaccine that occur.


title: Vaccination

text: If a vaccine passes all of the phases of testing, the manufacturer can then apply for license of the vaccine through the FDA. Before the FDA approves use in the general public, they extensively review the results to the clinical trials, safety tests, purity tests, and manufacturing methods and establish that the manufacturer itself is up to government standards in many other areas. However, safety testing of the vaccines never ends.


title: Vaccination

text: After FDA approval, the FDA continues to monitor the manufacturing protocols, batch purity, and the manufacturing facility itself. Additionally, most vaccines also undergo phase IV trials, which monitors the safety and efficacy of vaccines in tens of thousands of people, or more, across many years. This allows for delayed or very rare reactions to be detected and evaluated.


title: Vaccination

text: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has compiled a list of vaccines and their possible side effects. The risk of side effects varies from one vaccine to the next, but below are examples of side effects and their approximate rate of occurrence with the diphtheria, tetanus, and acellular pertussis (DTaP) vaccine, a common childhood vaccine.


title: Vaccination

text: The ingredients of vaccines can vary greatly from one to the next and no two vaccines are the same. The CDC has compiled a list of vaccines and their ingredients that is readily accessible on their website.


title: Vaccination

text: Aluminium is an adjuvant ingredient in some vaccines. An adjuvant is a type of ingredient that is used to help the body's immune system create a stronger immune response after receiving the vaccination. Aluminium is in a salt form (the ionic version of an element) and is used in the following compounds: aluminium hydroxide, aluminium phosphate, and aluminium potassium sulfate. For a given element, the ion form has different properties from the elemental form. Although it is possible to have aluminium toxicity, aluminium salts have been used effectively and safely since the 1930s when they were first used with the diphtheria and tetanus vaccines. Although there is a small increase in the chance of having a local reaction to a vaccine with an aluminium salt (redness, soreness, and swelling), there is no increased risk of any serious reactions.


title: Vaccination

text: Certain vaccines once contained a compound called thiomersal or thimerosal, which is an organic compound containing mercury. Organomercury is commonly found in two forms. The methylmercury cation (with one carbon atom) is found in mercury-contaminated fish and is the form that people might ingest in mercury-polluted areas (Minamata disease), whereas the ethylmercury cation (with two carbon atoms) is present in thimerosal, linked to thiosalicylate. Although both are organomercury compounds, they do not have the same chemical properties and interact with the human body differently. Ethylmercury is cleared from the body faster than methylmercury and is less likely to cause toxic effects.


title: Vaccination

text: Thimerosal was used as a preservative to prevent the growth of bacteria and fungi in vials that contain more than one dose of a vaccine. This helps reduce the risk of potential infections or serious illness that could occur from contamination of a vaccine vial. Although there was a small increase in risk of injection site redness and swelling with vaccines containing thimerosal, there was no increased risk of serious harm or autism. Even though evidence supports the safety and efficacy of thimerosal in vaccines, thimerosal was removed from childhood vaccines in the United States in 2001 as a precaution.


title: Vaccination

text: The administration protocols, efficacy, and adverse events of vaccines are monitored by organizations of the US federal government, including the CDC and FDA, and independent agencies are constantly re-evaluating vaccine practices. As with all medications, vaccine use is determined by public health research, surveillance, and reporting to governments and the public.


title: Vaccination

text: The World Health Organization (WHO) has estimated that vaccination prevents 3.5–5 million deaths per year, and up to 1.5 million children die each year due to diseases that could have been prevented by vaccination. They estimate that 29% of deaths of children under five-years-old in 2013 were vaccine preventable. In other developing parts of the world, they are faced with the challenge of having a decreased availability of resources and vaccinations. Countries such as those in Sub-Saharan Africa cannot afford to provide the full range of childhood vaccinations.


title: Vaccination

text: Vaccines have led to major decreases in the prevalence of infectious diseases in the United States. In 2007, studies regarding the effectiveness of vaccines on mortality or morbidity rates of those exposed to various diseases have shown almost 100% decreases in death rates, and about a 90% decrease in exposure rates. This has allowed specific organizations and states to adopt standards for recommended early childhood vaccinations. Lower income families who are unable to otherwise afford vaccinations are supported by these organizations and specific government laws. The Vaccines for Children Program and the Social Security Act are two major players in supporting lower socioeconomic groups.


title: Vaccination

text: In 2000, the CDC declared that measles had been eliminated in the US (defined as no disease transmission for 12 continuous months). However, with the growing anti-vaccine movement, the US has seen a resurgence of certain vaccine-preventable diseases. The measles virus has now lost its elimination status in the US as the number of measles cases continues to rise in recent years with a total of 17 outbreaks in 2018 and 465 outbreaks in 2019 (as of 4 April 2019).


title: Vaccination

text: Before the first vaccinations, in the sense of using cowpox to inoculate people against smallpox, people have been inoculated in China and elsewhere, before being copied in the west, by using smallpox, called variolation. The earliest hints of the practice of variolation for smallpox in China come during the 10th century. The Chinese also practiced the oldest documented use of variolation, which comes from Wan Quan's (1499–1582) Douzhen Xinfa (痘疹心法) of 1549. They implemented a method of "nasal insufflation" administered by blowing powdered smallpox material, usually scabs, up the nostrils. Various insufflation techniques have been recorded throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries within China. Two reports on the Chinese practice of inoculation were received by the Royal Society in London in 1700; one by Martin Lister who received a report by an employee of the East India Company stationed in China and another by Clopton Havers. In France, Voltaire reports that the Chinese have practiced variolation "these hundred years".


title: Vaccination

text: In 1796, Edward Jenner, a doctor in Berkeley in Gloucestershire, England, tested a common theory that a person who had contracted cowpox would be immune from smallpox. To test the theory, he took cowpox vesicles from a milkmaid named Sarah Nelmes with which he infected an eight-year-old boy named James Phipps, and two months later he inoculated the boy with smallpox, and smallpox did not develop. In 1798, Jenner published "" which created widespread interest. He distinguished 'true' and 'spurious' cowpox (which did not give the desired effect) and developed an "arm-to-arm" method of propagating the vaccine from the vaccinated individual's pustule. Early attempts at confirmation were confounded by contamination with smallpox, but despite controversy within the medical profession and religious opposition to the use of animal material, by 1801 his report was translated into six languages and over 100,000 people were vaccinated. The term "vaccination" was coined in 1800 by the surgeon Richard Dunning in his text "Some observations on vaccination".


title: Vaccination

text: In 1802, the Scottish physician Helenus Scott vaccinated dozens of children in Bombay against smallpox using Jenner's cowpox vaccine. In the same year Scott penned a letter to the editor in the "Bombay Courier", declaring that "We have it now in our power to communicate the benefits of this important discovery to every part of India, perhaps to China and the whole eastern world". Subsequently, vaccination became firmly established in British India. A vaccination campaign was started in the new British colony of Ceylon in 1803. By 1807 the British had vaccinated more than a million Indians and Sri Lankans against smallpox. Also in 1803 the Spanish Balmis Expedition launched the first transcontinental effort to vaccinate people against smallpox. Following a smallpox epidemic in 1816 the Kingdom of Nepal ordered smallpox vaccine and requested the English veterinarian William Moorcroft to help in launching a vaccination campaign. In the same year a law was passed in Sweden to require the vaccination of children against smallpox by the age of two. Prussia briefly introduced compulsory vaccination in 1810 and again in the 1920s, but decided against a compulsory vaccination law in 1829. A law on compulsory smallpox vaccination was introduced in the Province of Hanover in the 1820s. In 1826, in Kragujevac, future prince Mihailo of Serbia was the first person to be vaccinated against smallpox in the principality of Serbia. Following a smallpox epidemic in 1837 that caused 40,000 deaths, the British government initiated a concentrated vaccination policy, starting with the Vaccination Act of 1840, which provided for universal vaccination and prohibited variolation. The Vaccination Act 1853 introduced compulsory smallpox vaccination in England and Wales. The law followed a severe outbreak of smallpox in 1851 and 1852. It provided that the poor law authorities would continue to dispense vaccination to all free of charge, but that records were to be kept on vaccinated children by the network of births registrars. It was accepted at the time, that voluntary vaccination had not reduced smallpox mortality, but the Vaccination Act 1853 was so badly implemented that it had little impact on the number of children vaccinated in England and Wales.


title: Vaccination

text: The U.S. Supreme Court upheld compulsory vaccination laws in the 1905 landmark case Jacobson v. Massachusetts, ruling that laws could require vaccination to protect the public from dangerous communicable diseases. However, in practice the U.S. had the lowest rate of vaccination among industrialized nations in the early 20th century. Compulsory vaccination laws began to be enforced in the U.S. after World War II. In 1959, the WHO called for the eradication of smallpox worldwide, as smallpox was still endemic in 33 countries. In the 1960s six to eight children died each year in the U.S. from vaccination-related complications. According to the WHO there were in 1966 about 100 million cases of smallpox worldwide, causing an estimated two million deaths. In the 1970s there was such a small risk of contracting smallpox that the U.S. Public Health Service recommended for routine smallpox vaccination to be ended. By 1974 the WHO smallpox vaccination program had confined smallpox to parts of Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Somalia. In 1977 the WHO recorded the last case of smallpox infection acquired outside a laboratory in Somalia. In 1980 the WHO officially declared the world free of smallpox.