|
|
|
REVIEWS
| Bodily Matters: The Anti-Vaccination Movement in England, 1853–1907. By Nadja Durbach (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005. 296 pp.
$22.95PB).
|
| I have recently been exposed to quite a number of explanations about how vaccines contribute to asthma, allergies, and auto-immune problems and that's just the list of "a"s. If I were to go through the full alphabet of diseases that vaccinations allegedly caused, one would wonder why we are still alive as a species since vaccines are so dangerous. Having read Bodily Matters: The Anti-Vaccination Movement in England, 1853–1907, I am struck by the consistency of attitudes over time despite the lack of historical awareness amongst the speakers. For this bizarre sense of consonance alone, I am grateful to Nadja Durbach. |
1
|
|
Durbach's history of anti-vaccination in Britain begins with a brief discussion of the development of inoculation and vaccination. According the Durbach, vaccination was the medicine of the physician and Parliament while "alternative medicine was physic for the people." (p. 31) The Compulsory Vaccination Act (1853) forced the physician's style of medicine on the people's bodies by mandating vaccination, creating public vaccinators, and linking vaccination with the Poor Law. The legislation also spawned the Anti-Vaccination League which remained organized until it won concessions from the British government in the early twentieth century. It is this organization that forms the centerpost of Durbach's book. Durbach wants to rescue its members and their beliefs from obscurity and demonstrate the ways that one of the great progress narratives—the eradication of smallpox—conflicts with another great progress narrative—the triumph of individual liberty. |
2
|
|
In one sense, Durbach has set herself a hard course: the eradication of small pox has been one of medicine's successes and anti-vaccinators have been looked at as cranks and crackpots. In another sense, Durbach's course is made easier by the vaccination's very success. Now that smallpox no longer endangers the public health, it is far easier to see anti-vaccinators as bravely taking on the state. By making anti-vaccinators into heroes, Durbach has created a book that I both admire and fear. |
. . . |
There are about 711 more words in this article.
Please log in (or, if you are not yet an
authorized user, please go to the
User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
|
