How do you think the hundredth anniversary of Edward Jenner’s discovery of the smallpox vaccine in 1796 was celebrated?

This letter was printed in the Gloucestershire Chronicle on April 11, 1896, just as one of the last big smallpox epidemics in England was ending.

You might be surprised…

How Was the Hundredth Anniversary of the Smallpox Vaccine Celebrated?

You see, Edward Jenner, who had discovered his smallpox vaccine in 1796, was from Gloucestershire, a county in South West England.

Anti-vaccination meetings did a great deal of harm to Gloucester in 1896.

He lived in Berkeley, a town that was close to Gloucester, where in 1896, there was the last big smallpox epidemic in England.

An epidemic of smallpox that mostly affected folks who were either not vaccinated or not re-vaccinated!

Nearly 90% of those who were unvaccinated and got smallpox were under 10 years of age.

But wasn’t vaccination against smallpox compulsory in the UK with the Vaccination Act of 1853?

Vaccination and re-vaccination against smallpox was the only hope to end the smallpox epidemic in Gloucester.

Vaccination was compulsory at the time, but it was up to a local governing board to enforce fines if parents didn’t vaccinate their kids. And in Gloucester, the local governing board, the Board of Guardians, ignored the Vaccination Acts.

“The troubles which so often occur in infant life about the time when vaccination is enforced, and which in most cases have no necessary connection with vaccination itself, were magnified and distorted, so that anxious parents were led to believe that the complication of the operation by them was the rule instead of being the rare exception; whilst the awful slaughter of the innocents which small-pox inflicted before the time of Jenner was carefully ignored.”
The Story of the Gloucester Epidemic of Small-Pox : Showing How It Arose, the Facts Which Make It Notable, and the Lessons It Teaches, With Full Statistics, Diagrams, &C. / Told by Francis T. Bond

This began in 1887, when the Guardians, influenced by a local anti-vaccination society, had voted by a majority of 12 votes to 10 to stop prosecuting anyone who didn’t get vaccinated.

“Owing to the refusal of the guardians of late years to enforce the Vaccination Acts as well as to anti-vaccination propagandism in the city, Gloucester has rivalled Leicester in regard to its neglect of vaccination. The last published returns (1891) give as many as 84.7 percent of children not finally accounted for.”
The Small-Pox Epidemic at Gloucester.

And this led to the smallpox epidemic of 1896…

Before listening to anti-vaccine propaganda, folks should learn what these folks did to the ‘unhappy city of Gloucester’ in 1896.

An epidemic of smallpox that was triggered by an anti-vaccination movement that succeeded in scaring people away from getting vaccinated and protected after cases of smallpox had dropped.

Tragically, any lessons learned after Gloucester were long forgotten…

An epidemic that led to a lot of unvaccinated children dying or ending up blinded when they got smallpox!

Not surprisingly, the highest fatality rates were in those who were unvaccinated.

An epidemic that paralyzed a city.

Four hundred people died with smallpox during the 1896 Gloucester epidemic because of the influence of a local anti-vaccination society.

An epidemic that wasn’t controlled until most everyone finally got vaccinated.

A local Gloucester Jenner Society was created in 1896.

An epidemic that led to the formation of the first Jenner Society on the hundredth anniversary of Edward Jenner’s smallpox vaccine.

Gloucester smallpox epidemic, 1896: Edith Mills, a smallpox patient. Photograph by H.C.F., 1896. Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0). Source: Wellcome Collection. Unvaccinated, she was one of the lucky ones who survived.

An epidemic that never should have happened.

“…as the danger from smallpox epidemics decreased, the anti-vaccinationists became bold…”
Does Vaccination Prevent Smallpox? A Lesson Taught from the Gloucester Epidemic

An epidemic whose lessons were learned the hard way!

“It can now be claimed that Gloucester, which in 1892 headed the record of badly vaccinated communities in England and Wales, showing a percentage of 86g of children born during the year and not accounted for in the vaccination returns, is now, in regard both to its infantile and adult population, probably one of the best vaccinated towns in the Kingdom. When the reports are before the public there will be plenty of statistical and other evidence to prove again, for the thousandth the efficacy of the vaccination system when efficiently carried out. No doubt anti-vaccinators will argue about it till they are black in the face. We do not wish to enter into the controversy here. The fact about which there can be no possible dispute is that Gloucester, under the stern and costly teaching of experience, has returned to vaccination. There has seldom been an instance of a conversion so widespread and thorough on the part of any community. It is Jenner's Centenary triumph.”
Jenner's Centenary Triumph

An epidemic whose lessons should have endured and prevented the rise of the modern anti-vaccine movement.

Anti-vaccine folks were soon back in Gloucester - blaming the smallpox epidemic on poor sanitation and a defective sewer, claims that were debunked at the time of the outbreak…

An epidemic that was eventually forgotten…

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References

Gloucestershire Chronicle. April - May 1896

The Story of the Gloucester Epidemic of Small-Pox : Showing How It Arose, the Facts Which Make It Notable, and the Lessons It Teaches, With Full Statistics, Diagrams, &C. / Told by Francis T. Bond

The Lancet Volume 147, Issue 3778, 25 January 1896, Pages 250-251 The Small-Pox Epidemic at Gloucester.

A lecture (Does Vaccination Prevent Smallpox? A Lesson Taught from the Gloucester Epidemic) delivered by Charles Robert Drysdale (1829-1907) before the London Vegetarian Society on May 28th, 1896, at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon Street, London.

Jenner's Centenary Triumph. North British Daily Mail, Aug. 13th, 1896. (from What the Press Has Said About the Gloucester Epidemic and the Report of the Royal Commission On Vaccination.)

How Was the Hundredth Anniversary of the…