I read an article about vaccination entitled ‘Sentimental Medicine’ by Eula Bliss published on January 1, 2013. This article is about a mother vaccinating her child for the first time. The mother went on to give a brief history of how vaccination became such an important thing in the medical field, and who was most likely or required to be vaccinated. Now doctors push for people who are considered to be in the lower class to be vaccinated ‘When I asked the pediatrician what the purpose of the hep B vaccine was, he answered…Hep B vaccine for the inner city, he told me- it was designed to protect the babies of drug addicts and prostitutes’ (Bliss). Due to Eula’s well-dressed clean and put-together appearance, the doctor assumed she was a well-fit parent to her child. The odds of her child contracting common diseases that children with parents of a lower working class would catch are very slim. ‘It was not something, he assured me that people like me, needed to worry about. All that this doctor knew of me then was what he could see’ (Bliss).

In 1898 over a century ago the was an epidemic breakout of smallpox. During this time people believed that Caucasians were immune to the disease. It was mainly associated with African Americans and any immigrants such as; Italians or Mexicans. Due to the particular group of individuals that are being affected by this disease, it became mandatory for the affected class to be vaccinated. In 1774 during an outbreak of smallpox, it was discovered that milkmaids were insusceptible to the disease. If a milkmaid milked a cow with cowpox, she would develop some blisters on her hands, making her immune to the disease. Not all vaccines can help us to become immune from certain diseases or viruses, like the influenza vaccination for example most people take the flu shot every year but still get the cold. ‘When enough people are given even a relatively ineffective vaccine, viruses have trouble moving from host to host and cease to spread, sparing both the unvaccinated and those in whom vaccination has not produced immunity’(Bliss).

Even though it has been 275 years since the first vaccine there is still a huge debate on people getting vaccinated and also mothers vaccinating their children. In recent events with the new outbreak of the coronavirus and the talk of everyone getting vaccinated raises the concerns for many is this vaccination safe? Most are against it I myself believe if you are medically able to take the vaccine you should not only protect yourself but those around you. No doubt one might experience similar symptoms as the coronavirus this is to be expected as the vaccines contain a straight of the virus in them to help us to build immunity to the virus and also help to stop the spread of the virus the more individuals that get vaccinated the better the chances of this virus becoming extinct. Whereas the least amount of people that get vaccinated the more cases raise and the cases of the virus mutating becomes higher. As the article states ‘…the chances of contracting measles can be higher for a vaccinated person living in a largely unvaccinated community than for an unvaccinated person living in a largely vaccinated community’.

Work cited

Biss, Eula, et al. “Sentimental Medicine, by Eula Biss.” Harper’s Magazine, 7 Mar. 2019, harpers.org/archive/2013/01/sentimental-medicine/.