SOCI 200gm Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Pus, Polio Vaccine, Herd Immunity
Document Summary
Why a century-old battle over vaccination continues to rage. Wars are not leading cause for death, disease are the cause: ex. Disease helped pizarro conquer the incas: smallpox epidemic (1870s) in the franco prussian war killed more than. Smallpox killed more french than prussians because prussian"s were vaccinated. By end of decade, several european countries passed laws mandating vaccination. This action worked -> 1899, small pox only took a couple of hundreds of lives out of 50million people in germany. Epidemics in us led to dozens of laws and regulations to vaccinate police officers, public health officials and armed forces by will or by force. This helped end smallpox as a serious public health threat but it brought out a ferocious clash between personal freedom and public health. Description of smallpox -> killed 25%-60% of infected. Caused fever, malaise, body ache, vomiting -> then mouth soures and a bad rash.