‘The Cow Pox Tragedy – Scene the last.’ by George Cruikshank, 1812

Description

Handcoloured etching entitled ‘The Cow Pox Tragedy – Scene the last.’ By George Cruikshank. Published by M. Jones in 1812.

This satirical print shows the initial opposition to, and fears about, vaccination.
‘The Cow Pox Tragedy’ is an attack on both vaccination and The Royal College of Physicians, who in 1806 had produced a report arguing the benefits of vaccination and the skills of Edward Jenner (1749–1823), the pioneer of smallpox vaccine, the world’s first vaccine.
The central design shows a funeral procession, beneath rays labelled ‘Common Sense’, ‘Candid Investigation’, ‘Reason’, ‘Religion’, and ‘Truth’, leading a coffin inscribed ‘Vaccina aged 12 Years’.
To the right the headquarters of the Royal College of Physicians is shown collapsing.
The upper part has a stage curtain inscribed ‘His Conscience that makes Cow-herds of us all’, from which falls a small horned cow with the head of Jenner.

Fact

In the late 1790s Edward Jenner developed vaccination, experimentally infecting his subjects with a mild form of cowpox as an ‘immunisation’ against the dreaded smallpox.
Initially there was some opposition to vaccination; it was viewed as dangerous by some. However, when the British government introduced compulsory vaccination in 1852 the result was a dramatic decline in deaths from smallpox.
In 1979 smallpox became the first infectious disease to be eradicated worldwide, as a result of the World Health Organization’s 1966 Global Smallpox Eradication Campaign.