The Fight To Oppose Mandatory Vaccinations Has Been A Continuous Battle For Centuries

( A poster advertising a demonstration in Andover Town Hall in support of a Mrs. Blanchard on her release from imprisonment for refusing to allow her children to be vaccinated (date unknown). (Photo courtesy of MicroBiology Today).

I was under the false impression that controversy over vaccinations was a new phenomena, however as I was reading a biography on Thomas Jefferson, titled "A Strange Case of Mistaken Identity" by Alf Mapp Jr., I came across a passage concerning Thomas Jefferson receiving the smallpox inoculation, and the controversy surrounding this medical procedure, at the time:

"Fatalities were so numerous that doctors debated whether the disease or the supposed preventative was the greater menace...it was generally believed that inoculated persons spread smallpox to others...Inoculation was forbidden by law in New York and had excited mob action in Boston."

After doing a little research to get more information regarding this topic, I found that, in actuality, opposition to vaccination has existed as long as vaccination itself!

Even before vaccinations, it was common knowledge that survivors of smallpox became immune to the disease, so doctors were practicing a procedure called variolation, which is when a person was purposefully infected with smallpox (Variola), in a controlled manner, so as to minimize the severity of the infection, and also to induce immunity against further infection.  This procedure came under heavy criticism.

The origins of the practice of variolation, or inoculation, are hard to trace, however, we know that under the guidance of Rev. Cotton Mather, and Dr. Zabdiel Boylston, variolation became quite popular in the American colonies.  Mather went around advocating the need for immediate variolation, however, he persuaded only Dr. Boylston, and not many others.  Still, with Mather's support, Dr. Boylston immediately started a variolation program and inoculated many volunteers, despite much opposition in both the public and the medical community in Boston. As the disease spread, so did the controversy around Mather and Boylston.  At the height of the epidemic, some in opposition to the variolation procedure were urging the authorities to arrest Dr. Boylston for murder, and a grenade was even thrown into the house of Reverend Cotton Mather!

According to Thomas Jefferson biographer, Alf J. Mapp, Jr.:

"On the eve of the [American] Revolution, debate over the practice [of variolation] would further exacerbate differences between Norfolk's rebels and tories.  At the climax rebels would smash the windows of a tory mayor's residence and march the inoculated women and children of his family to the Pest House, last home of those suffering contagious terminal illnesses."

Edward Jenner

Then came a physician/scientist named Edward Jenner.  For many years, Jenner had heard the tales that dairymaids, which are women who work milking cows, making butter, and cheese, on a farm, were protected from smallpox naturally, after having suffered from cowpox.  Using this information, Jenner concluded that cowpox not only protected against smallpox, but also could be transmitted from one person to another as a deliberate mechanism of protection.  On May 14, 1796, using matter from the cowpox lesions of a dairymaid, he inoculated an 8-year-old boy, James Phipps. Afterward, the boy developed mild fever, and discomfort in the axillae, or armpit. Nine days after the procedure he felt cold and had lost his appetite, but on the next day he was much better. Jenner inoculated the boy again, this time with matter from a fresh smallpox lesion. No disease developed, and Jenner concluded that protection was complete.

The Latin word for cow is vacca, and cowpox is vaccinia; Jenner decided to call this new procedure vaccination.