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Vaccinated vs Unvaccinated – Smallpox Edition

Vincent Iannelli, MD

Anti-vaccine folks really like comparing vaccinated and unvaccinated kids.

Why?

They think that unvaccinated kids are healthier, even though we know that they aren’t, they simply get more vaccine-preventable diseases.

Vaccinated vs Unvaccinated – Smallpox Edition

And we have known it for a long time. In Leicester, for example, it was known that folks weren’t vaccinated were much more likely to die of smallpox than those who were. In fact, the fatality rate in Leicester in the late 19th century and early 20th century was 1 to 2% for those who were vaccinated. What was it for folks who were unvaccinated? It was 8 to 12%!

And like many other diseases, if they did get sick, those who were vaccinated against smallpox often got a very mild case, especially as compared to those who were unvaccinated. We can see that even now thanks to photographs taken by Dr. Allan Warner, the Resident Medical Officer to the Isolation Hospital in Leicester.

Dr. Warner’s photos have been published time and again, but they can originally be found in the New Sydenham Society’s Atlas of 1904.

There are many photos and many stories from the time that were testament to the fact that vaccines work.

“A boy, aged 14 years, unvaccinated, sickened with small pox on April 14th. He was removed to hospital on April 18th, where he had a severe confluent attack. The father consented to his wife and three children being vaccinated, stating that personally he would not be vaccinated, but would be a “test,” to see if there was anything in it.

Ten days later his daughter, aged three years, developed a small-pox eruption she had less than one hundred spots and never appeared ill. No other person in the house suffered from small-pox except the father, vaccinated in infancy, his eruption appearing fourteen days after the son had been removed to hospital. A photograph of the father and daughter, taken on the twelfth day of the father’s eruption, may be seen in Plate VI. [see below] and requires no comment.”

This father was the only one in the family who skipped getting vaccinated, and he got smallpox.

And there are also stories of folks skipping vaccines already. Remember, the anti-vaccine movement is even older than the first vaccines. It started with variolation. By the time these photos were taken, anti-vaccine folks had already marched on Leicester. A march that didn’t turn folks away from getting vaccinated.

Folks were still getting vaccinated using the Leicester Method in Leicester.

For those who think getting smallpox was all about poor nutrition and hygiene, how do you explain these photos? Why such different outcomes for people in the same family, if it wasn’t their vaccine?

It was the vaccine, as this report on an outbreak of smallpox in 1903 clearly showed.

And that’s why the anti-vaccine movement “slowly faded from view” in the early 20th century.

Too bad we let them come back…

What to Know About Vaccinated vs Unvaccinated with Smallpox

It should be clear that in the era of smallpox, like with other vaccine-preventable diseases, you clearly wanted to be vaccinated.

More on Vaccinated vs Unvaccinated with Smallpox

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