Reactions To Dr. Jenner’s

23 Pages 5757 Words

by political motives of jealousy and greed among scholars, anti-English sentiments among the French, and mistrust of medical professionals.
Of course, to examine the entire world and its reactions would require a book far longer than is in my capability to write. Because this is only a paper, there will be limitations. One of those limitations is geographic. I will be focusing on the specific geographic regions of England, France, Lower Canada, Puerto Rico, because I consider them the most interesting. Another limitation to my paper is the fact that in discussing motives to reactions, there are sometimes underlying themes that I cannot see because I did not live in the time period that this took place. For example I do not know what culture was really like in these places. Is it possible there were anti-medical cultural movements? I haven’t researched this, and I did not live in this time, therefore it is impossible for me to see. Another limitation to my paper is that I have never lived in fear of smallpox. Smallpox, although not completely eradicated, has been almost non-existent since the mid 1970’s and in most first world countries much longer than that. It is therefore difficult for me to understand the psychological effects of that disease. Was it as feared as we think it was? Or are we overreacting? A contour my paper will have to follow is time. This paper only considers reactions to the smallpox vaccine between the years 1796 and 1830. This narrow section of time, while important, is small when compared to the amount of total time we have had to work with vaccination. There is undoubtedly more written from 1825 to present day about smallpox and vaccination. However, the further away from the release of the vaccine one travels in time, the further they are from the initial first impressions of the vaccine. These are some limitations that the reader will have to take into account.
The paper will begin in England where the...