Talk:Mozart and smallpox

Intro

May I suggest removing the "this article discusses..." bit? Self-referencing comments is normally a no-no. Ironholds (talk) 18:43, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to make an exception to the taboo for this particular case. This article covers three separate (though related) topics. So it seems reasonable to tell readers in advance that the content is heterogeneous. Cheers, Opus33 (talk) 19:04, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Title

It might be better to rename the article something like "Smallpox in the mid-18th century", since Mozart is really being used as an example. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:31, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I would politely disagree, on two counts. First, WP Mozart staffers are trying to achieve really detailed coverage of this composer, and given our format this requires many satellite articles covering particular periods of Mozart's life. This is the satellite article for the smallpox episode.

Second, modern biographers often illuminate their subject by including a lot about their times. For example, Stephen Greenblatt's Will in the World does this in a serious way for Shakespeare. Ruth Halliwell's The Mozart Family is another good example, and in fact this article is basically a summary what she says about smallpox in her Mozart biography. Discussion of smallpox here is a means to an end, i.e. reaching a better understanding of Mozart's own life. Opus33 (talk) 16:46, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

A competely superfluous article

Some people really have too much time on their hands. The deplorable thing with those "Mozart and ..." articles is that their author exclusively rehashes crappy secondary literature to churn out redundant musings, glimmering with nonsense such as "poor parents in Vienna were paid a ducat to have their children inoculated". If they really had paid one ducat the monarchy would have gone bankrupt. LOL!--91.115.53.155 (talk) 09:45, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Why should I believe you -- an internet ranter who has never cited a single reference source in support of his claims -- and not Ruth Halliwell, a serious scholar if there ever was one? You have some bizarrely inflated sense of your own credibility. Opus33 (talk) 05:46, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

If Ruth Halliwell is a serious scholar, then you certainly consider Agnes Selby "a professor of Mozartology". What Halliwell writes concerning this payment to parents is simply rubbish.--91.115.166.84 (talk) 14:41, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

Link to Smallpox Eradication Section

See also: Smallpox § Eradication

I've added this see also tag at the beginning of Later History (section 4 at the time of this writing), especially given the relevant-yet-cursory conclusion sentence ("With vaccination, great progress was made in reducing incidence of the disease, and it was eventually confirmed as eradicated in 1979."). It seems that linking to the eradication section of Smallpox can add additional context without distracting from the specificity of this article (see discussion in Title section above). Please note any objections here, and revert if desired. (Kyleleitch) 7 December 2016 23:55 UTC

Thank you for adding this. Opus33 (talk) 04:10, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

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