Chapter 3 - Smallpox vaccination in the 19th century: obstinacy versus pragmatism

Abstract

This chapter explores the ancient theories of disease that colored the view of the medical and scientific community of effective curative measures, inhibiting the acceptance of new ideas despite what was frequently overwhelming evidence for alternative theories; the battle between inoculation and vaccination through the 19th century and the gradual replacement of the unpredictable and often dangerous practice of variolation by Jenner’s vaccine, in spite of continued denigration of the practice in Britain, even from physicians in some of the most senior hospital positions. Also, the first examples of vaccine adverse effects the origins of which were poorly understood, arising from the crude methods by which the cowpox vaccine was prepared and the variable practices in its administration were discussed, and the eventual spread of vaccination throughout Europe, North America, coincident with vigorous analysis in Britain that rebutted the arguments of anti-vaccination movements and leading in 1898 to the Vaccination Act.