With more than 100 confirmed cases of measles in the United States so far this year, many of which have been linked to the Disneyland outbreak in December, the importance of vaccines can’t be understated. Politicians and doctors have weighed in, several pushing back on exemption loopholes that exist in many states. Some took an even stronger stance, like Patsy Stinchfield, director of Pediatric Infectious Disease Services at Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota, who told The Huffington Post that vaccines should be as nonnegotiable as seat belts.
But is this viewpoint really so radical? Historically speaking, no. These five larger-than-life historical figures were adamant defenders of public health, vaccination and inoculation, the precursor to the vaccines developed by English doctor Edward Jenner in 1796. Inoculation is the grisly but effective process of infecting an individual with fluid from the smallpox pustules of a mildly infected person. Sounds gross, but given the choice between immunity and contracting a deadly disease, the public health benefits of inoculation (and later, vaccination) are more clear today than ever.
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Now there is enough vaccine for everyone, and over and over again the doctors who spoke at the Warm Springs ceremony stressed the fact that everyone should be inoculated with it…
Fathers and mothers should not fail to get their inoculations, because in many cases it is harder to retrain a crippled older person to a new life than it is to retrain a crippled child.
