Past Pandemics: Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and the Smallpox Vaccine
Thomas Jefferson may have been been on the wrong side of some issues with the President in whose cabinet he served, but the man was a pretty good scientist for his time. In August of 1800, shortly before becoming President himself, Jefferson helped to conduct trials of the smallpox vaccine, developed four years earlier by British physician Edward Jenner. While this sounds like a noble undertaking, these efforts are tarnished by the fact that Jefferson used some of his slaves to test the vaccine on. Jefferson was impressed to learn that in 1796, Jenner had discovered that a little bit of a similar virus taken from cows could protect humans. The word vaccine has its origin from vacca, the Latin word for cows. News of Jenner's discovery came to the new world due to Harvard professor Benjamin Waterhouse, who vaccinated his own family and exposed them to smallpox patients. Waterhouse wrote of his experiment in a letter to Jefferson, who was intrigued by what he had learned.
The two amateur scientists figured out how Waterhouse could send vaccines to Virginia for more testing. According to records in the possession of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, Jefferson had his children and some of his domestic slaves go through a dangerous inoculation process. His first trial subjects Jefferson chose were three slaves: fourteen-year-old Ursula Hughes. The vaccination was unsuccessful, (the source article doesn't expressly state this, but the iunstated implication is that she died from the disease). Jefferson's butler Burwell Colbert and his blacksmith Joseph Fossett were the first test subjects to be successfully vaccinated. In the ensuing months Jefferson had had 200 members of his extended family and neighbors vaccinated by August of 1800. In a letter to Waterhouse he described the appearance of papules at the site of the vaccination on the test subjects:
"As far as my observation went, the most premature cases presented a pellucid liquor the sixth day, which continued in that form the sixth, seventh, and eighth days, when it began to thicken, appear yellowish, and to be environed with inflammation. The most tardy cases offered matter on the eighth day, which continued thin and limpid the eighth, ninth, and tenth days."
Over the next few months, exposures to the virus showed positive results. Jefferson’s vaccinated group appeared to be protected from the disease. Jefferson's vaccine trials were astonishing for the fact that he was not a full-time doctor and any medical education that he had was self-taught. The trial led to there being more vaccination in the United States. Jefferson sent more vaccines to other parts of Virginia and to Washington, D.C. When he became President, he also instructed Meriwether Lewis to take some vaccine on the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
Jefferson's contemporary Benjamin Franklin was an outspoken supporter of smallpox inoculation. Using dried scabs of the pox itselfhe inoculated 72 Bostonians. According to Franklin, only two of these subjects died, whereas among a another group of persons not inoculated, Franklin reckoned that a quarter of them died.
But much like there remains an anti-vaccination element of our population todat, both Jefferson and Franklin had to argue with their own early anti-vaccination movement. In Franklin's case, one of his sons died of smallpox at age 4, six years before Jenner discovered cowpox’s use. Rumors spread that the boy had died after his father inoculated him with smallpox, but these rumors were false. Franklin wrote in his autobiography: "In 1736 I lost one of my sons, a fine boy of four years old, by the small-pox, taken in the common way. I long regretted bitterly, and still regret that I had not given it to him by inoculation."
James Madison, who began his presidency in 1809, enthusiastically signed the Vaccine Act of 1813, a law was designed to prevent the spread of counterfeit vaccines, authorize federal agents to distribute the genuine vaccine, and ensure that it could be mailed around the country postage-free. The Act established a national source for uncontaminated, smallpox vaccine. Congress mandated that a National Vaccine Agent be appointed by the President to "preserve" supplies of "genuine vaccine matter" and "furnish the same to any citizen of the United States, whenever it might be applied for." Congress subsidized the distribution of vaccine through its franking privilege, providing free postage to and from the Vaccine Agent. A driving force behind the passage of the act was a crusading Baltimore physician named Dr. James Smith who was immediately appointed as the first National Vaccine Agent.
During smallpox outbreaks the government had also enacted Quarantine Acts. This occurred during Jefferson's Presidency in 1805. But the new vaccination scheme was also one of the first episodes in the federal government's growing intervention into American society to promote the "General Welfare" in the early days of the Republic. This measure was the genesis for much of the infrastructure we have today, with the Centers for Disease Control, the Food and Drug Administration, and similar agencies for public health.
In his 1805 State of the Union address, Jefferson referred to an unnamed epidemic which struck port cities that year. He admonished Congress, telling them that "although the health laws of the States should be found to need no present revisal by Congress, yet commerce claims that attention be ever awake to them."
The Vaccine Act of 1813 efforts of the National Vaccine Agent led to the vaccination of approximately 50,000 Americans each year. But although vaccination had the potential to save tens of thousands of lives, many obstacles to effective implementation of vaccination across the country were not surmounted until the end of the century. The Act was repealed after only nine years, after the country was left without an authoritative national source of trustworthy vaccine. Congress refused to seriously address the issue again for 80 years. State governments refused to spend money to promote vaccination. Federal and state governments failed to vaccination efforts and ensure a reliable supply of vaccine. As a result, smallpox took a terrible toll in the United States during the 19th century. Tens of thousands of lives were needlessly lost because of governmental inaction. Meanwhile many European countries such as Denmark had practical eliminated smallpox by implementation compulsory vaccination.
The two amateur scientists figured out how Waterhouse could send vaccines to Virginia for more testing. According to records in the possession of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, Jefferson had his children and some of his domestic slaves go through a dangerous inoculation process. His first trial subjects Jefferson chose were three slaves: fourteen-year-old Ursula Hughes. The vaccination was unsuccessful, (the source article doesn't expressly state this, but the iunstated implication is that she died from the disease). Jefferson's butler Burwell Colbert and his blacksmith Joseph Fossett were the first test subjects to be successfully vaccinated. In the ensuing months Jefferson had had 200 members of his extended family and neighbors vaccinated by August of 1800. In a letter to Waterhouse he described the appearance of papules at the site of the vaccination on the test subjects:
"As far as my observation went, the most premature cases presented a pellucid liquor the sixth day, which continued in that form the sixth, seventh, and eighth days, when it began to thicken, appear yellowish, and to be environed with inflammation. The most tardy cases offered matter on the eighth day, which continued thin and limpid the eighth, ninth, and tenth days."
Over the next few months, exposures to the virus showed positive results. Jefferson’s vaccinated group appeared to be protected from the disease. Jefferson's vaccine trials were astonishing for the fact that he was not a full-time doctor and any medical education that he had was self-taught. The trial led to there being more vaccination in the United States. Jefferson sent more vaccines to other parts of Virginia and to Washington, D.C. When he became President, he also instructed Meriwether Lewis to take some vaccine on the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
Jefferson's contemporary Benjamin Franklin was an outspoken supporter of smallpox inoculation. Using dried scabs of the pox itselfhe inoculated 72 Bostonians. According to Franklin, only two of these subjects died, whereas among a another group of persons not inoculated, Franklin reckoned that a quarter of them died.
But much like there remains an anti-vaccination element of our population todat, both Jefferson and Franklin had to argue with their own early anti-vaccination movement. In Franklin's case, one of his sons died of smallpox at age 4, six years before Jenner discovered cowpox’s use. Rumors spread that the boy had died after his father inoculated him with smallpox, but these rumors were false. Franklin wrote in his autobiography: "In 1736 I lost one of my sons, a fine boy of four years old, by the small-pox, taken in the common way. I long regretted bitterly, and still regret that I had not given it to him by inoculation."
James Madison, who began his presidency in 1809, enthusiastically signed the Vaccine Act of 1813, a law was designed to prevent the spread of counterfeit vaccines, authorize federal agents to distribute the genuine vaccine, and ensure that it could be mailed around the country postage-free. The Act established a national source for uncontaminated, smallpox vaccine. Congress mandated that a National Vaccine Agent be appointed by the President to "preserve" supplies of "genuine vaccine matter" and "furnish the same to any citizen of the United States, whenever it might be applied for." Congress subsidized the distribution of vaccine through its franking privilege, providing free postage to and from the Vaccine Agent. A driving force behind the passage of the act was a crusading Baltimore physician named Dr. James Smith who was immediately appointed as the first National Vaccine Agent.
During smallpox outbreaks the government had also enacted Quarantine Acts. This occurred during Jefferson's Presidency in 1805. But the new vaccination scheme was also one of the first episodes in the federal government's growing intervention into American society to promote the "General Welfare" in the early days of the Republic. This measure was the genesis for much of the infrastructure we have today, with the Centers for Disease Control, the Food and Drug Administration, and similar agencies for public health.
In his 1805 State of the Union address, Jefferson referred to an unnamed epidemic which struck port cities that year. He admonished Congress, telling them that "although the health laws of the States should be found to need no present revisal by Congress, yet commerce claims that attention be ever awake to them."
The Vaccine Act of 1813 efforts of the National Vaccine Agent led to the vaccination of approximately 50,000 Americans each year. But although vaccination had the potential to save tens of thousands of lives, many obstacles to effective implementation of vaccination across the country were not surmounted until the end of the century. The Act was repealed after only nine years, after the country was left without an authoritative national source of trustworthy vaccine. Congress refused to seriously address the issue again for 80 years. State governments refused to spend money to promote vaccination. Federal and state governments failed to vaccination efforts and ensure a reliable supply of vaccine. As a result, smallpox took a terrible toll in the United States during the 19th century. Tens of thousands of lives were needlessly lost because of governmental inaction. Meanwhile many European countries such as Denmark had practical eliminated smallpox by implementation compulsory vaccination.