Why Did Reverend Jacobson Oppose Compulsory Smallpox Vaccination?
There are at least three reasons why Reverend Henning Jacobson opposed compulsory smallpox vaccination. First, he said that he and one of his sons had suffered a severe reaction to previous smallpox vaccinations, and suggested that smallpox vaccinations could be the source of infection, rather than the preventive of infection. He did not want to have another reaction and he did not want his son to have another reaction. Judge Harlan said, well yes, but the risk of a small number of people developing an infection or injury from a vaccination procedure was worth the benefit of the vaccination procedure acquired by the public. Dr. Alfred De Maria, Jr., as noted earlier, attested to the impurity of some of the vaccines available in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, suggesting that a person could even acquire syphilis via vaccination, if the vaccine material came from a person with syphilis. The quality of vaccines does vary, as described elsewhere. (22) Second, Reverend Jacobso
