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” In fact, these first efforts, which were undertaken by visiting Europeans at the court of Fatḥ-ʿAli Shah, were strongly resisted by the ruling elite. For instance, in 1813, when Andrew Jukes, a surgeon of the East India Company, began vaccinating children in capital against smallpox, in the hope of stemming the ravages of an epidemic, he met with little success: this was apparently due to the Per-sian administration’s own covert opposition to his work, which they perceived as a suspect alien interference.
