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Absurd Medical History Moments that Prove People Have Always been this Dumb

Khalid Elhassan September 14, 2021 36 min

Dumb - An 1802 cartoon depicting Dr. Jenner using cowpox to inoculate people who fear that they will grow cow appendages — An 1802 cartoon depicting Dr. Jenner using cowpox to inoculate people who fear that they will grow cow appendages. Library of Congress

Dumb - From the start, the effort to eradicate smallpox was met by fierce resistance from a minority of loud anti vaxxers — From the start, the effort to eradicate smallpox was met by fierce resistance from a minority of loud anti-vaxxers. The Lancet

24. The Nineteenth Century Anti-Vaxxer Movement

Eventually, the British Parliament legislated the Vaccination Act of 1853, which mandated the vaccination of all infants within three months of their birth (or four months if they were in an orphanage). Notice of the requirement was to be given to parents or guardians when a birth was registered, and certificates of vaccination were to be returned by doctors to the registrar of birth. In 1867, the age requirement was extended to fourteen, and penalties were added for parents who failed to vaccinate their children.

Immediate resistance erupted from many who objected to the shift from voluntary vaccination to mandatory, and they demanded the right to control their bodies and those of their children. The Anti Compulsory Vaccination League and the National Anti Vaccination League were formed. British anti-vaxxers took their act on the road and went international. A visit across the Pond to the United States by British vaccination opponent William Tebb triggered the foundation in 1879 of the Anti Vaccination Society of America to oppose compulsory smallpox vaccination.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.