POX: AN AMERICAN HISTORY. by Willrich, Michael - 2011

New York: Penguin Press, 2011. 422 pp, large 8vo (9 1/2" H). B&w photographs. "At the turn of the last century, a powerful smallpox epidemic swept the United States from coast to coast. The age-old disease spread swiftly through an increasingly interconnected American landscape: from southern tobacco plantations to the dense immigrant neighborhoods of northern cities to far-flung villages on the edges of the nascent American empire. (This book) offers a gripping chronicle of how the nation's continent-wide fight against smallpox launched one of the most important civil liberties struggles of the twentieth-century. At the dawn of the activist progressive era, and during a moment of great optimism about modern medicine, the government responded to the deadly epidemic by calling for universal compulsory vaccination. To enforce the law, public health authorities relied on quarantines, pesthouses, and 'virus squads' - corps of doctors and club-wielding police. Though these measures eventually contained the disease, they also sparked a wave of popular resistance among Americans who perceived them as a threat to their health and to their rights. At the time, antivaccinationists were often dismissed as misguided cranks, but Willrich argues that they belonged to a wider legacy of American dissent that attended the rise of an increasingly powerful movement. While a well-organized antivaccination movement sprang up during these years, many American resisted in subtler ways - by concealing sick family members or forging immunization certificates. 'Pox' introduces us to memorable characters on both sides of the debate, from Henning Jacobson, a Swedish Lutheran minister whose battle against vaccination went all the way to the Supreme Court, to C.P. Wertenbaker, a federal surgeon who saw himself as a medical missionary combating a deadly - and preventable - disease. As Willrich suggests, many of the questions first raised by the turn-of-the-century antivaccination movement are still with us: How far should the government go to protect us from peril? What happens when the interest of public health collide with religious beliefs and personal conscience?" Light wrinkling at top/bottom of spine. Dust jacket has some light edge creasing - mainly at top/bottom of spine.. First Edition. Hard Cover. Very Good/Very Good.