American Historical Ephemera and Early Photography

A RARE AND HISTORIC GROUP OF ITEMS DOCUMENTING THE EARLY STAGES OF VACCINE USAGE IN THE UNITED STATES AND THE CAMPAIGN FOR PUBLIC ACCEPTANCE OF THE METHOD

BARRET, John (1748-1830). At a Meeting of the Magistrates for the City of Richmond, on Tuesday the 25th of March 1794. It was agreed that the following parts of the Act of Assembly, passed 21st of December 1792, entitled "An Act to reduce into one, the several Acts for regulating the Inoculation of the Small Pox within this Commonwealth," should be published.- viz. Printed broadside, signed in type by John Barret, Mayor of Richmond, Virginia. Richmond, [VA]: [March 1794]. Approx. 9 x 11 in. (creasing, small tears along edges with some losses especially at bottom left corner, adhesive repair on verso).

Apparently unrecorded broadside references smallpox inoculation and makes clear that even at this early period the practice was both known and strictly regulated. The broadside further regulates the actions of those showing signs of disease to stay away from other individuals; and thorough cleaning of clothes, bedding, and residence of an infected person was required by law.

HOLBROOK, Dr. Amos (1754-1842). Document signed ("Amos Holbrook") as a Physician, alongside signature of Oliver Houghton, Chairman of the Committee for Vaccination. Embossed double-paged sheet of stationery with a pink border on front page, constituting a small certificate produced to commemorate and acknowledge children who were inoculated with smallpox to prove the efficacy of the cowpox vaccine. Milton, [Massachusetts]. 25 October 1809. 3pp, approx. 4 x 4 3/4 in. folded,, 7 3/4 x 4 3/4 in. open (dampstaining, toning, approx. 3/4 in. separation along center vertical fold). Second page of the document names the twelve children who were tested by inoculation. Third page of the document is an unsigned letter dated 11 November 1809, to a Mrs. Rowe about the inoculation of the children: "The committee beg to wait on Mrs. Rowe and to request her acceptance of a card [the document offered here] expressive of the result of the test by small pox inoculation of twelve children vaccinated at the town inoculation in July last...."

In 1809, the citizens of Milton, Massachusetts, became part of the first municipal effort in the United States to offer free vaccination to all the town's inhabitants. Over a three-day period in July 1809, over three hundred persons were inoculated. Following this program, the town leaders took the unusual step of holding a public demonstration to prove that the cowpox vaccine offered protection from smallpox. On October 9 of that same year, the twelve children identified in this document - all of whom had been vaccinated in July - were inoculated with smallpox by Dr. Holbrook and confined to a single home for fifteen days. On October 25th, showing no signs of smallpox, the twelve children were "discharged this day from the Hospital, after offering to the world in the presence of most respectable witnesses...an additional evidence of the never failing honor of that mild preventative the cowpock [sic] against smallpox infection...." Following this demonstration, Milton's councilman published a detailed account of the experiment, and in 1810 the state of Massachusetts passed the Cow Pox Act directing towns within the state to provide for the vaccination of their inhabitants.

FANSHER, Sylvanus (1770-1846). Genuine Vaccination, By S. Fansher. Broadside, ca 1829, promoting vaccination against smallpox. Approx. 8 1/4 x 13 1/2 in. (creasing at folds, loss at top right affecting small amount of manuscript inscription, toning, adhesive remnants). Broadside was folded and mailed by Fansher as a stampless cover, verso postmarked "Berlin, CT / Nov. 15 / The Selectmen of Plymouth Conn." with "10" due.

Rare vaccination broadside promoting vaccination, with manuscript notations added by Fansher above and below the decorative border: "The Selectmen of Plymouth Gentlemen should you make provision / [for] a general vaccination in your Town, as they are doing in other places, / [I] should be happy to do that service, provided you should see fit to employee me; I have honor Gentlemen, to be your humble servant[.] S Fansher." Additional note below printed text "If I am needed, please to drop me a line to Southbury per[?] Mail."

Sylvanus Fansher was a native of Plymouth, Connecticut. Though not a degreed physician, Fansher practiced medicine, conducted research on smallpox, and administered vaccinations to the public. According to the Massachusetts Historical Society's February 2021 article "Defeating the 'Speckled Monster;: The Fight Against Smallpox from Inoculation to vaccination," Harvard University's Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse asserted in a letter to a friend that Fansher had "vaccinated a greater number, by far, than any man in America, if in the world." Waterhouse's letter continued that Fansher had vaccinated "whole towns, for what, most frequently, could not be called a reward." In this broadside, Fansher offers specific numbers related to his work, indicating that "He has, within twenty-five years, vaccinated eighty-seven thousand Persons, and tested between five and six hundred of them with Small pox, without producing a symptom of that terrible disease...." Earlier broadsides from Fansher coupled with newspaper advertisements from the period for his vaccination services demonstrate that he was active at least as early as 1810, so the high number of vaccinated claimed by Fansher ca 1829 may well be true.

[With:] FANSHER, Sylvanus (1770-1846). "Memorial of Sylvanus Fansher, praying the establishment of a permanent vaccine institution, for the benefit of the Army, Navy, and Indian Department." 18 April 1838. Senate Document. No. 385. 25th Congress, Second Session. 12pp, approx. 6 x 9 in. (disbound, losses along edge line, scattered spotting, toning). Signed in type "Sylvanus Fansher, Principal. / Office of the Institution, Hartford, Conn."

Fansher promotes a permanent vaccine institution "for the benefit of the army, navy, and Indian department," and writes of his efforts: "Your memorialist would further represent, that he was an early promoter of vaccination in this country...endeavoring to convert public opinion from the old inoculation to the new [vaccination], until we had the satisfaction to see the better practice triumphant...."