#smallpox vaccination

[feminineforms]

"Smallpox Vaccination" (1934) by Ōta Chōu

[rosscountyhistoricalsociety]

On March 10, 1916, Miss Lillie Brown was vaccinated for smallpox and her doctor, W.L. Counts, wrote this certificate. Lillie apparently kept it for the rest of her life. As an adult, Lillie became a teacher.

[lepromatosis]

Smallpox in Wales, 1962, part 8 of 11

The two photographs above show Welsh people lining up for Vaccination during the outbreak.

In total, 46 people contracted smallpox during the Welsh outbreak and 19 of those infected died of the disease. Mass vaccination effectively halted further spread of the virus, ending the outbreak in April.

The following is a letter from the the Welsh Board of Health calling for mass vaccination. It dates to March 1st, 1962.

The text of the image is typed out below.

“The ministry’s policy on the occurrence of smallpox is that persons known to have been in contact with the sufferer should be offered vaccination and kept under surveillance but that the vaccination should not be offered freely to all comers although a demand of that kind is known to arise in every case where the disease appears. On advice from Dr. Culley the Medical Officers of Health for Rhondda and Llantrisant maintained this attitude at first on this occasion. Contacts were known to be numerous comprising mostly of people who ahd visited clubs and a public house at which Mr. Hodkinson had called. But the number of people presenting themselves at the clinics used in these districts for the vaccination of contacts outran all possibilities and checks had to be instituted.

On the occurrence of the further Trealaw cases yesterday, with no known link with any earlier cases, it seemed that the spread of the disease had got out of hand and in the face of this Dr. Culley received instructions from Dr. Godber, Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health to offer no further opposition to mass vaccination. It was ascertained that supplies of vaccine at the Public Health Laboratory, Cardiff, were adequate for all probable demands and steps were taken to augment them. Seven clinics are no at work and hundreds of people, if not thousands, have already been vaccinated.”

—

this 11 part series will be shown in full here

[ukdamo]

Today’s Flickr photo with the most hits: a curious one from Fort Mackinac, Mackinac Island, MI.

In 1846,  local outbreak spurred the Fort’s doctor into vaccinating all who lied in the Fort, and all those who lived on the island (through agency of the local Catholic priest, who acted as his proxxy, after instruction).

[lepromatosis]

Smallpox infected mother with vaccinated child, Windsor, 1924.  

I have seen this picture floating around for years, usually appearing much smaller than what is shown above and with a short caption visible beneath. When I came across this larger version of the image, I decided to post it. 

[minutemanworld-blog]

On May 14, 1796 Edward Jenner gives the first recorded vaccination against smallpox. Inoculation had been going on for a very long time before this (in America the first inoculations were in the Boston smallpox epidemic of 1721 with Cotton Mather being one of the primary supporters of the practice).

Vaccination was a new technique though. This cartoon was published in 1808

Jenner (r.), standing between two colleagues, holds a vaccination knife whose blade is inscribed 'Milk of human Kindness'. He addresses three old-fashioned doctors, practicers of inoculation, who run off to the left. holding similar but much larger knives, the blades dripping blood and inscribed 'The curse of human kind'. Jenner says: "Oh Brothers, Brothers, suffer the love of Gain to be Overcome by Compassion for your fellow creatures, & do not delight to plunge whole Famileis in the deepest distress, by the untimely loss of their nearest and Dearest relatives". A cherub is about to crown him with a laurel wreath, saying, "The preserver of the Human Race". The three inoculators say: "Curse on these Vaccinators we shall all be starved, why Brother I have matter enough here to Kill 50,; And those would communicate it to 500 more; Aye - Aye. I always order them to be constantly out in the air, in order to spread the contagion". The ground is covered by dead or dying infants, heavily spotted. A spotted mother clasps her spotted infant, while her infected husband leans against her. On the extreme right. stands a woman saying "Surley [sic] the disorder of the Cow is preferable to that of the Ass". Jenner's two colleagues hold large rolled documents, one inscribed 'Bill to'; one (r.) also holds a rose.