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January 9, 1897

COMPULSORY VACCINATION; SHOULD IT BE ENFORCED BY LAW?

Author Affiliations

PRESIDENT MEDICO-LEGAL CONGRESS. NEW YORK.

JAMA. 1897;XXVIII(2):49-53. doi:10.1001/jama.1897.02440020001001

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Abstract

This subject came recently before the Medico-Legal Society in the city of New York, introduced by a paper presented by Dr. Montague R. Leverson, in which his position was mainly an assault upon vaccination itself.

Most laymen and the majority of the medical profession have been educated to accept vaccination as a reliable, safe, and the only preventive remedy, to insure against smallpox, and without especial examination the world has accepted the remedy discovered by Jenner, whose centennial has just been celebrated by all the world, even in Japan.

It was not considered quite the proper way to meet the issue in a controversy pro and con, as to the merits of vaccination for this reason, and the issue was broadened and widened so as to embrace this issue:

"Conceding the utility and efficacy of vaccination as a preventive against smallpox should it be made compulsory?"

Owing to the recent

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