The flu, that is. News broadcasts remind us to get our flu shot, while skeptics are fearful of potential consequences. The vaccine controversy isn’t new. One of the earliest vaccines for small pox was almost as terrifying as the disease itself.
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| James Gillray “The Cow Pock-or-the Wonderful Effects of the New Inoculation!”
1802. Hand colored etching, Morgan Library and Museum
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The Morgan Library and Museum in New York houses over 1,000 prints by English caricaturist James Gillray (1756-1815). Caricature prints became a commercially successful form of political commentary during this turbulent period of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars.
This etching, entitled “ The Cow-Pock-or-the Wonderful Effects of the New Inoculation!” appeared in 1802 in the publication of the Anti-Vaccine Society. In 1798, English physician Edward Jenner demonstrated that infecting patients with cow pox immunized them from contracting the dreaded small pox. Opposition was immediate, with claims that the procedure was dangerous, unsanitary, and sacrilegious. Gillray makes fun of the public’s anxiety, depicting vaccinated individuals developing bovine characteristics, such as horns and snouts.
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