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The Colonial Travels and Travails of Smallpox Vaccine, c.1820–1840

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Migration, Health and Ethnicity in the Modern World

Part of the book series: Science, Technology and Medicine in Modern History ((STMMH))

Abstract

In 1803, the newly established Royal Jennerian Society expressed confidence that the complete extermination of smallpox was under their control. ‘It is not in the course of human probability that centuries will again present such an opportunity of doing good’, it declared.1 Five years earlier, Edward Jenner’s An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccine had demonstrated that deliberate exposure to the infection of cowpox conferred permanent protection from the much more serious and contagious disease of smallpox. This process, developed in the fields of rural England, seemed safer and decidedly more modern than the practice of inoculating with live smallpox matter that had been introduced to Britain earlier in the eighteenth century.2

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Notes

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Authors
  1. Katherine Foxhall
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for the History of Medicine in Ireland, University College Dublin, Ireland

    Catherine Cox (Director) (Director)

  2. Centre for the History of Medicine, University of Warwick, UK

    Hilary Marland (Professor of History) (Professor of History)

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© 2013 Katherine Foxhall

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Foxhall, K. (2013). The Colonial Travels and Travails of Smallpox Vaccine, c.1820–1840. In: Cox, C., Marland, H. (eds) Migration, Health and Ethnicity in the Modern World. Science, Technology and Medicine in Modern History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137303233_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137303233_5

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-349-45412-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-30323-3

  • eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)

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