Traditionally it was played by milkmaids who used their milking stools as a wicket, according to one belief while waiting for their husbands to return from working in the fields.
He followed up his observation that milkmaids who had previously caught cowpox did not later catch smallpox by showing that inoculated cowpox protected against inoculated smallpox.
The kitchen staff of huge noble or royal courts occasionally numbered in the hundreds: pantlers, bakers, waferers, sauciers, larderers, butchers, carvers, page boys, milkmaids, butlers and countless scullions.
