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mandatory smallpox vaccination had been quite prevalent in Britain and the impact
was probably significant. 24
Following the comparative methodology Linda Bryder, who examined BCG, and
Ulrike Lindner and Stuart Blume, who considered polio immunisation have recently
produced comparative analyses of three different countries’ various experiences with
these vaccines. Linda Bryder, in her article on the use of BCG, explored the
enthusiasm of the Scandinavians, the cautiousness of the British and the distrust of the
Americans who did not introduce it nationally as other countries did. 25 The different
approaches are examined; Scandinavia with socialist policies in place used BCG early
on as a preventative measure, whilst, Bryder contended, Britain and the United States
were ‘wedded’ to the curative method. She pointed out that, in conjunction with other
factors, this changed in Britain after World War Two as staffing shortages in hospitals
and sanatoria treating tuberculosis led to a change in attitude towards BCG as did the
new social climate which led to the National Health Service. The United States,
however, unaffected by staffing problems and with the development of new drug
treatments such as streptomycin, did not alter its BCG policy although, as Bryder
indicated, by the 1950s it was alone in this attitude; other western countries had
implemented BCG in one way or another. She highlighted the importance of different
political climates in determining immunisation policies.
The article by Ulrike Lindner and Stuart Blume was similar in structure to Bryder’s
paper and also considered three countries with different policies, although they
examined the introduction of the Salk (IPV) and Sabin (OPV) vaccines in Britain, the
Netherlands and West Germany. 26 Starting from a premise that most historical polio
immunisation studies tended to focus on the United States where the vaccines were
24
See N. Durbach, Bodily Matters: The Anti-Vaccination Movement in England, 1853-1907, Durham,
2005.
N. Durbach, ‘They Might As Well Brand Us’: Working-Class Resistance to Compulsory Vaccination
in Victorian England’, Social History of Medicine, 13, 1, 2000, pp.45-63.
D. Porter, R. Porter, ‘The Politics of Prevention: Anti-vaccinationism and Public Health in Nineteenth
Century England’, Medical History, 32, 3, 1988, pp.231-252.
A. Beck, ‘Issues in the Anti-Vaccination Movement in England’, Medical History, 4, 1960, pp.310-
321.
25
L. Bryder, ‘We shall not find salvation in inoculation: BCG vaccination in Scandinavia, Britain and
the USA, 1921-1960’, Social Science and Medicine, 49, 1999, pp.1157-67.
26
U. Lindner, S. S. Blume, ‘Vaccine Innovation and Adoption: Polio Vaccines in the UK, the
Netherlands and West Germany, 1955-1965’, Medical History, 50, 4, 2006, pp.425-46.
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