The antivaccine heresy: Jacobson v. Massachusetts and the troubled history of compulsory vaccination in the United States

Most people today celebrate vaccination as a great achievement, yet many nineteenth-century Americans opposed it, so much in fact that states had to make vaccination compulsory. In response, antivaccination societies formed all over the United States, lobbying state legislatures and bringing lawsuit...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Walloch, Karen L. ca. 20./21. Jh (Author)
Format: Electronic eBook
Language:English
Published: Rochester, NY University of Rochester Press 2015
Series:Rochester studies in medical history
Subjects:
Online Access:BSB01
UBG01
Volltext
Summary:Most people today celebrate vaccination as a great achievement, yet many nineteenth-century Americans opposed it, so much in fact that states had to make vaccination compulsory. In response, antivaccination societies formed all over the United States, lobbying state legislatures and bringing lawsuits to abolish these laws. One such lawsuit ultimately arrived at the United States Supreme Court, which upheld the laws in a landmark decision, <I>Jacobson v. Massachusetts</I> (1905). In this study, Karen Walloch examines the history of vaccine development in the United States, the laws put in place enjoining the practice, and the popular reaction against them. Walloch finds that at the end of the nineteenth century Americans had good reason to fear vaccination. Vaccines simply did not live upto claims made for their safety and effectiveness. They induced pain, disability, and grim or even fatal infections. In this critical history of the antivaccine movement and of <I>Jacobson v. Massachusetts</I> in particular, Walloch locates the beginnings of a legacy of doubt about vaccination -- one that affected legislation in all fifty states and is still very much alive today. <BR><BR> Karen Walloch is a historian who teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
Item Description:Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 17 May 2021)
Physical Description:1 Online-Ressource (x, 339 Seiten)
ISBN:9781782046851
DOI:10.1017/9781782046851

There is no print copy available.

Interlibrary loan Place Request Caution: Not in THWS collection! Get full text