Her great-grandson was Fernando Tamagnini de Abreu e Silva, the commander of the Portuguese Expeditionary Corps, which fought with the Allies during World War I.
During the Peninsular War, in June 1808, the year after the French invasion of Portugal under General Junot, the Portuguese in the northwest of the country rebelled.
She succeeded in avoiding destruction of the city, reducing the reparations expected by the French, and saving the lives of three Portuguese friars who were to be executed.
[1][2][3][4] Together with Maria Isabel Wittenhall van Zeller (1749–1819), who was active in the Porto area of Portugal,[5] Tamagnini was a female pioneer in the use of vaccinations against smallpox.
Towards the end of the 18th century, the work of Edward Jenner and others showed that cowpox delivered by vaccination to humans could protect against smallpox.