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The Contagion of Liberty - The Politics of Smallpox in the American Revolution (Hardcover)
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The Contagion of Liberty - The Politics of Smallpox in the American Revolution (Hardcover)
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A timely and fascinating account of the raucous public demand for
smallpox inoculation during the American Revolution and the origin
of vaccination in the United States. The Revolutionary War broke
out during a smallpox epidemic, and in response, General George
Washington ordered the inoculation of the Continental Army. But
Washington did not have to convince fearful colonists to protect
themselves against smallpox-they were the ones demanding it. In The
Contagion of Liberty, Andrew M. Wehrman describes a revolution
within a revolution, where the violent insistence for freedom from
disease ultimately helped American colonists achieve independence
from Great Britain. Inoculation, a shocking procedure introduced to
America by an enslaved African, became the most sought-after
medical procedure of the eighteenth century. The difficulty lay in
providing it to all Americans and not just the fortunate few.
Across the colonies, poor Americans rioted for equal access to
medicine, while cities and towns shut down for quarantines. In
Marblehead, Massachusetts, sailors burned down an expensive private
hospital just weeks after the Boston Tea Party. This
thought-provoking history offers a new dimension to our
understanding of both the American Revolution and the origins of
public health in the United States. The miraculous discovery of
vaccination in the early 1800s posed new challenges that upended
the revolutionaries' dream of disease eradication, and Wehrman
reveals that the quintessentially American rejection of universal
health care systems has deeper roots than previously known. During
a time when some of the loudest voices in the United States are
those clamoring against efforts to vaccinate, this richly
documented book will appeal to anyone interested in the history of
medicine and politics, or who has questioned government action (or
lack thereof) during a pandemic.
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