From the perspective of historiography, the article analyzes the construction of scientific medicine's major landmark: the small-pox vaccine. When this vaccine was created and widely distributed, the medical field demonstrated how technology controls life on a planetary scale. The great victory of scientific medicine rests on the fact that today the life of the small-pox virus depends upon laboratory conditions. Born in England during the 1870's, the anti-vaccine movement questioned universal, mandatory small-pox vaccination. The article examines some metaphors and analogies used by physicians and historians, revealing the process by which the vaccine, as a phenomenon, was constructed.
CITATION STYLE
Bahia Lopes, M. (1996). The meaning of vaccine or when predicting is a duty. História, Ciências, Saúde--Manguinhos, 3(1), 65–79. https://doi.org/10.1590/s0104-59701996000100005
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