Following the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a plethora of books addressing pandemics and the role of vaccination in preventing them. In his take on this topic, historian Simon Schama focuses specifically on the smallpox, cholera, and bubonic plagues of the 19th and 20th centuries and the role of Jewish scientists in developing vaccines to combat them. During this time period, there was a belief that infectious outbreaks were caused by Jews and other foreigners. Two of the scientists he highlights are Elie Metchnikoff, “the father of innate immunity,” a Russian-born zoologist, and his Ukrainian-born star pupil, Waldemar Haffkine. Both men faced discrimination because of their Jewish (and foreign) backgrounds.
Haffkine is recognized as the first microbiologist to develop and use vaccines against cholera and the bubonic plague. In Foreign Bodies, Schama gives a detailed account of his roll-out of these vaccines in India and other third-world countries. Even though Haffkine’s efforts proved successful, throughout his career he had to battle government agencies and the medical community in adopting their use. As this book documents, there has always been a strong pushback against such vaccinations, as well as numerous false beliefs about their efficacy and dangers. In the book’s concluding chapter, Schama ties these early efforts to the rise of the anti-vaxxer movement during the COVID-19 pandemic. For those wishing to better understand the difficulties faced in the acceptance of vaccines today, this history of the science behind their development and usage shows that the road to their adoption has always been rocky.
Robert Up At Dawn 