Vaccination Wars

Ella Stewart-Peters

Description

For as long as there have been vaccines, there have been those who oppose them. As the world continues to grapple with the impact of COVID-19 and the challenges of managing an effective vaccination programme, this book shows that our experiences have more in common with those of previous generations than we may so far have understood. 

Vaccination Wars examines the history of vaccine objection in nineteenth-century Cornwall, looking not only at the reasons behind resistance to the smallpox vaccine, but at the lives of Cornish parents who steadfastly refused to have their children inoculated. Exploring the earliest phases of the anti-vaccination movement, the rise of middle-class resistance and organized opposition societies, and the influence of propaganda, the book presents a more nuanced understanding of the ways regional and cultural differences affect the reception of state-mandated medical practices. 

Ella Stewart-Peters challenges existing notions of the nineteenth-century debate by shifting the focus away from major urban centres to the struggles concerned with enforcing compulsory vaccination at the peripheries. Distinct parallels can be drawn with the anti-vaccination movement of the twenty-first century.

This book will appeal to anyone who has ever wondered about the origins of the modern anti-vaccination movement, or is more generally interested in the history of medicine.

List of Illustrations

Preface

Introduction

1. Vaccination Versus Sanitary Theory

2. Vaccination Versus Inoculation

3. Folklore Versus Medicine

4. The People Versus Compulsion

5. The Cragoe Brothers Versus the Establishment

6. The Poor Law Unions Versus the People

Conclusion

Bibliography

Index

Sujets

• Médecine
• Médecine Générale
• Preventive Medicine
• Social History
• Medical
• HISTORY
• Cornualles
• 19th century
• Medical anthropology
• Politics
• History of medicine
• Anthropology
• Cornwall

Informations

• Publié par: University of Exeter Press
• Date de parution: 14 juin 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781804130070
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

VACCINATION WARS
VACCINATION WARS
Cornwall in the Nineteenth Century
ELLA STEWART-PETERS
First published in 2022 by
University of Exeter Press
Reed Hall, Streatham Drive
Exeter EX4 4QR
UK
www.exeterpress.co.uk
Copyright © Ella Stewart-Peters 2022
The right of Ella Stewart-Peters to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
https://doi.org/10.47788/AHRE1301
ISBN 978-1-80413-000-1 Hardback
ISBN 978-1-80413-007-0 ePub
ISBN 978-1-80413-008-7 PDF
Cover image: The Public Vaccinator by Lance Calkin. Wellcome Collection. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and obtain permission to reproduce the material included in this book. Please get in touch with any enquiries or information relating to an image or the rights holder.
Typeset in Baskerville MT Std by Palimpsest Book Production Ltd, Falkirk, Stirlingshire
Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface
Introduction
1. Vaccination Versus Sanitary Theory
2. Vaccination Versus Inoculation
3. Folklore Versus Medicine
4. The People Versus Compulsion
5. The Cragoe Brothers Versus the Establishment
6. The Poor Law Unions Versus the People
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
Illustrations
Figure 1: The Cow Pock-or-the Wonderful Effects of the New Inoculation! , James Gillray, 1802. Satirical image of Edward Jenner vaccinating a woman with cowpox as previous recipients of the vaccine begin to sprout bovine features around her. (Wellcome Collection: Public Domain Mark)
Figure 2: Triumph of De-Jenner-ation , Linley Sambourne, 1898. Published in Punch protesting the imminent passing of the 1898 amendment to the Vaccination Act which allowed for children to be exempted from the procedure. The amendment was unpopular with both the pro- and anti-vaccinationist camps. (Wellcome Collection: Public Domain Mark)
Figure 3: Vaccination against small pox or mercenary merciless spreaders of death and devastation driven out of society , Isaac Cruikshank, 1808. Pro-vaccinationist image of Edward Jenner (carrying a clean lancet) and other vaccinators seeing off inoculators (seen carrying bloody lancets) as they leave a trail of dead smallpox victims in their wake. An angel is placing a wreath upon the head of Jenner, declaring him to be the preserver of the human race . (Wellcome Collection: Public Domain Mark)
Figure 4: Watercolour drawing of a case of idiopathic gangrene, occurring on the back of a child after vaccination. Condition could also possibly be varicella gangrenosa . Thomas Godart, January 1884. (Wellcome Collection: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) https://wellcomecollection.org/works/h9v5534g/images?id=x6j4zjds )
Figure 5: Watercolour drawing of an eruption which appeared on the arm of a child after vaccination. Thomas Godart, 24 March 1884/1885. (Wellcome Collection: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) https://wellcomecollection.org/works/xrn7m8h8/images?id=k2r3s4sj )
Figure 6: Watercolour drawing of a male child showing a cutaneous eruption (vaccinia?), occurring after vaccination. No history of syphilis. Thomas Godart, 1862-1875. (Wellcome Collection: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) https://wellcomecollection.org/works/g8bu49a3/images?id=bgad84nr )
Figure 7: Confluent smallpox eruption (tenth day) on the face and hand of a 25-year-old unvaccinated and uninoculated woman in the smallpox ward of La Pitié Hospital, Paris. She survived the illness after five weeks of suffering but left the hospital badly deformed as a result. From John D. Fisher, Description of the distinct, confluent, and inoculated small pox, varioloid disease, cow pox, and chicken pox , Wells and Lilly, Boston, 1829, Plate V.
Preface
When the concept of this book first began to take shape, there was no COVID-19, no real notion that everything would soon be thrown into the chaos of a global pandemic. The world watched as a few isolated cases of a new respiratory illness became a localized outbreak, then an epidemic, and then, finally, a pandemic. Naturally, we turned to the promise of vaccination to save us. If there is one thing that the recent pandemic has taught us, it is that, even with modern scientific medicine, the mightiest of nations remains at the mercy of infectious disease.
It is certainly fitting that this book is set in Cornwall. Situated as it is on the English periphery, far from the metropolis of London and the major industrialized urban centres of the North, life has always been a little bit different in Cornwall. Initially spared the worst of the pandemic and the restrictions on everyday life that came with it, Cornwall was the stage chosen for the June 2021 G7 summit that was to usher in a new era of post-pandemic international relations. The influx of people from around the globe, however, brought the threat of COVID closer to home for those who call the south-westernmost tip of the English mainland home-just as smallpox had periodically arrived on Cornish shores in the nineteenth century and claimed the lives of the most vulnerable.
Introduction
In late 1880, a child was born on a farm called Penhellick in the St Clement district, just outside Truro. This child-William Cragoe-was not born into any substantial wealth or privilege, but into a family that was only a little better off than many of those around them. Otherwise ordinary, William was not destined to do anything great with his life; in fact, he would not even live to see his fifth birthday. Yet his death was a consequence of a battle that raged for a century-the Vaccination Wars. Young William Cragoe died of smallpox, the first vaccine-preventable illness, some eighty-eight years after the vaccine had been proven effective, and almost fifty years after the vaccine had first been mandated throughout England through the Vaccination Act of 1840. Given the position of his family, William should have received the protection that vaccination offered. Indeed, the impact of vaccination throughout Cornwall meant that the broader Truro region had been free of smallpox for over a decade, until the fateful outbreak at the Penhellick farmhouse that claimed William s life in 1884. Other diseases such as diphtheria, measles, and whooping cough were still taking their terrible toll on the children of the Truro region but, overall, infant mortality was slowly decreasing after peaking in the 1870s. However, William s parents-Albertus and Emma-belonged to a small but vocal subset of the Cornish middle classes-the anti-vaccinationists.
Granted city status in 1876, Truro had grown prosperous on the back of the Cornish mining industry in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. As the urban population grew in the 1870s, Truro had struggled with basic hygiene standards and overcrowding. Of particular concern was the water supply, which could be limited in the warmer summer months while being often brackish and contaminated with industrial waste, raw sewage, animal carcasses, and offal. This meant that for those residents of the poorer regions of the fledgling city, waterborne diseases were a constant threat, particularly to the lives of their children. In overcrowded areas, where multiple families occupied the same squalid dwellings, communicable diseases such as diphtheria, measles, and tuberculosis were ever present. The combination of waterborne and communicable diseases often made for a heightened mortality rate, as individuals (particularly children) who were already battling viral illnesses, such as measles, whooping cough, or scarlet fever, also contracted diarrhoea or dysentery from the contaminated water supply that they had no choice but to drink.
Living on a rural property of some sixty acres on the outskirts of the city, the Cragoe siblings were not as vulnerable to the effects of contaminated water supplies or overcrowding. Indeed, William and his siblings were kept at arm s-length from the issues facing Truro s urban poor. Yet they were left vulnerable to smallpox because of the anti-vaccinationist ideals espoused particularly by their father. Albertus, who served as a Poor Law Guardian for Truro, was extremely vocal in his opposition to the practice, as was his older brother, Thomas, who lived with his wife and family on a property at Kea-again, separated from the everyday struggles of the urban poor. It is not known exactly how smallpox came to the Penhellick farmhouse in 1884. Although Albertus frequented the city in his role as Guardian, it is unlikely to have been brought from there, given that the district had not seen a single case reported for thirteen years. The most likely scenario is that the virus was brought to the farmhouse from London-either by one of Emma s relatives visiting, or as an unfortunate souvenir of a trip to the capital. Whichever way the virus arrived at Penhellick, the unvaccinated Cragoe children-William, his two older sisters, and three younger brothers (including a newborn)-were extremely vulnerable. As well as claiming William s life, the virus also infected at least two of his siblings and one of the family s servants.
William Cragoe was just one of hundreds of millions of people who fell victim to smallpox before its eradication in 1980. What makes William s story so disturbing is not the circumstances of his death, although horrible, but the reactions of his family. As staunch anti-vaccinationists, William s untimely death did nothing to sway his father or his uncle in their campaign against the procedure. Indeed, just six months after the death of his son, Albertus Cragoe proudly proclaimed in the press that my late experience proves the important fact that unvaccinated persons may have small-pox in its mildest form , likely referring to the other children who recovere