Almost 250 years ago, George Washington created America’s first mass immunization mandate, relying on science to protect public health.
Oh, how times have changed.
Back then, smallpox had just helped end the Continental Army’s invasion of Canada.
Despite making it all the way to Quebec, thousands of soldiers contracted the disease.
Washington feared the same would happen to his own troops, fresh from their surprise victories at Trenton and Princeton.
As Washington wrote at the time, “Necessity not only authorizes but seems to require the measure, for should the disorder infect the Army, in the natural way, and rage with its usual Virulence, we should have more to dread from it, than from the sword of the enemy.” The inoculation methods of Washington’s time were crude.
No genuine vaccine existed.
Instead, scabs or pus were taken from someone infected with smallpox and then placed into scratches or small wounds.
Another option was to inhale it.
Either way, those who experienced variolation inevitably developed fevers, rashes, and other symptoms of smallpox.
At least 1 percent of those who received it died.
Still, without his tough choice, the Continental Army might have failed entirely, and America with it.
These days, safe vaccines are available for diseases that ravaged our ancestors.
Forms of influenza, hepatitis, chickenpox, polio, rubella, mumps, measles and many other diseases can now be prevented.
The smallpox virus that Washington dreaded has been eradicated.
The quality and availability of vaccines are a modern miracle, one that all humanity should be proud of.
Yet, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, vaccination rates for measles in the U.S.
are declining, and the number of cases is climbing.
More and more parents are opting against vaccination for their children, which gives these diseases room to spread.
Last year, two children in Texas died of the completely preventable disease.
