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Nadia Durbach. Bodily Matters: The Anti-Vaccination Movement in England, 1853-1907. Radical Perspectives. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2005. xiii + 277 pp. 111. $22.95 (paperbound, 0-8223-3423-2).
Antivaccinationism was one of the unjustly forgotten popular movements of the nineteenth century. It was strong in Germany, but nowhere more so than in Britain. Indeed, so resonant are its echoes that such attitudes persist today in the skeptical approach to MMR vaccination still nurtured in certain circles in England. Despite the absence of persuasive evidence, parents believe that the triple jab of measles, mumps, and rubella may cause autism. Such fears have recently claimed their first victims: children suffering from autoimmune diseases who could not be vaccinated and had to rely on herd immunity, but-betrayed by the selfishness of their playmates' parents-died of measles.
Despite the continuing importance of antivaccinationism, the nineteenth-century movement in Britain has not previously received adequate historical treatment. Nadia Durbach's book accomplishes this: it is a sympathetic, nuanced, well-researched, and clearly written account of antivaccinationism in its historical context. Although Durbach tends to portray the movement as one of an oppressed popular constituency against the machinations of public authority and scientific orthodoxy, she is subtle and imaginative enough to realize that this will not suffice-and so she also touches on the religious roots of protest, the geographical localism of the movement, and the...