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Vaccination furor

Public health backlash rises to surface over smallpox inoculation legislation

Photo from the Library of Congress This Chicago Department of Health poster was a Works Project Administration art project meaning it was crafted between 1936 and 1941.

Anti-vaxxers (people opposed to vaccinations) aren’t a new phenomenon.

Push back to measures designed to protect the public health isn’t a novel idea either.

An interesting case study in that are took place in Warren County in 1902.

A local historian, Ernest Miller, uncovered that story back (presumably) in the 1980s in an article in the Times Observer. It’s from that source that I pull heavily for this story.

The beginning of the storm started to brew in 1895 when the Pennsylvania General Assembly passed a bill which required school students to be vaccinated against smallpox if they wanted to return to school effective Dec. 29, 1902. (I can’t help but think that the delay in implementation was partly because a seven year gap would protect many of the politicians actually acting on the bill).

By the turn of the 20th century, smallpox wasn’t a secret disease anymore.

It has terrorized communities for centuries and some estimates indicate that 300 million people died in the 20th century alone from smallpox.

And that would be in an era with a vaccine and much advanced medical care.

The idea of a vaccination wasn’t new but it was still novel.

“In Pennsylvania and in Warren County, mandatory vaccination was something new and rather startling and as might have been expected, some people were afraid of it, some did not understand it and some wanted nothing to do with it and refused to allow their children to receive the serum,” Miller’s article concluded. “Attorney D.I. Ball wrote in the Warren Evening Times of Dec. 6, 1902 that the law was constitutional and had been upheld by the State Supreme Court. In addition, the Superior Court had ruled that a school board has the power to suspend a teacher refusing to comply with the regulations of such a board.”

Miller’s article describes the ensuing Board of Education meeting in Warren.

“Three days later the Board of Education met and Dr. Frantz and Dr. M.V. Ball spoke in favor of vaccination while Fred A. Steber, who was secretary of the Board of Health, spoke against it. Dr. Arird was not against vaccination but was strongly against making the act compulsory. The board voted six to two in favor of the law.”

The Warren Evening Times published letters from “Anti” and “Student” and “Humanity” and the board upheld enforcement of the law (not like they had much choice).

So, effective Dec. 29, 1902, no students could enter the school, per Miller, “unless they had a certificate from a physician certifying that the pupil had been successfully vaccinated.”

There were five elementary schools in the city at that time with a total enrollment of 1,280 and only 780 students were in attendance. 458 students were absent on the first day at the high school.

A local minister, Rev. John Olander of Calvary Baptist Church wrote a letter to the editor of the Warren Times-Mirror.

“I emphatically protest agains the ruling of the Board of Education which deprives my four children of the privilege of attending the public schools,” he wrote. “I wish to state that I will never submit to having them vaccinated for the reason that I do not believe that the vaccination will provide a protection to them. I am of the opinion that vaccination is harmful to the system. Let us keep our children clean, give them plenty of fresh air and wholesome food and the necessary exercise and they will have the greatest safeguard against smallpox and all other diseases. The wave of opposition that has swept over this community speaks for itself and it will be demonstrated that the people will demand the rights to which they are entitled under the constitution. In conclusion, I demand that the doors of the public schools be thrown open for my children. The laws of the state allow them the privilege of free education and I pay taxes for that purpose.”

A Mrs. Cousin, who lived on Conewango Ave., argued that her children should be admitted because they had previously had smallpox.

“They presented a certificate signed by a Dr. McTaggart to that effect,” Miller wrote. “However, several Warren doctors maintained that the girls had not had smallpox; in addition, the (school) board asked for proof that Dr. McTaggart was a properly registered physician. He was not in Warren during this particular dispute and there was considerable doubt that he ever had been.”

Court rulings ultimately removed a decision on past exposure to smallpox from the school board and gave it to doctors. (The court also sided with the Cousin family).

“The Warren County Medical Society skirted the question neatly by stating that vaccination prevented the occurrence of smallpox and this was signed by Dr. M.V. Ball, president of the Board of Health and by Dr. C.W. Schnell, City Medical Inspector,” Miller concluded.

“Thanks to the success of vaccination, the last natural outbreak of smallpox in the United States occurred in 1949,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “In 1980, the World Health Assembly declared smallpox eradicated and no cases of naturally occurring smallpox have happened since.”

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