The original anti-vaxxers
How the zeal of Edward Jenner contributed to today’s culture wars
By Gareth Williams
In September 1798 a self-published book with an outlandish premise was about to change the world. At first sight, “An Inquiry into the Cowpox” looked more like a piece of vanity publishing than one of the greatest landmarks in the history of medicine. Its author, a doctor called Edward Jenner, was largely unknown outside rural Gloucestershire.
In a 75-page illustrated manual, Jenner explained how people could protect themselves from smallpox – a horrific brute of a disease that killed one person in 12 and left many survivors scarred for life – by inoculating themselves with cowpox, an obscure disease that affected cattle. This extraordinary process was to be known as vaccination, from the Latin for cow.
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