Early vaccines & Weimar hygiene.

Voltaire, 1727: “On dit doucement, dans l'Europe chrétienne, que les Anglais sont des fous et des enragés: des fous, parce qu'ils donnent la petite vérole à leur enfans, pour les empêcher de l'avoir; des enragés, parce qu'ils communiquent de gaité de coeur à ces enfans une maladie certaine et affreuse, dans la vue d'un mal incertain.”

The British had started to embrace the practice of variolation—inoculation to smallpox via exposure to minute quantities of the virus—as early as 1821, when Lady Mary Wortley Montagu advocated for widespread use amidst a fresh outbreak in London, having earlier variolated her son in Constantinople, where the practice was commonplace. The French, however (as per Voltaire above), remained skeptical, and inoculation was unevenly pursued. It wasn't until 1763, amidst another smallpox epidemic—and a heated debate surrounding the costs/benefits of voluntarily exposing children to a lethal pathogen—that the leading French Court ordered a prohibition on further inoculations, pending opinions that they commissioned from the Faculties of Theology and of Medicine at the Université de Paris.

Early-on, the Committee from the Faculty of Medicine split-off into two rival groups; pro and con. Representing the opinion of the pro-inoculation faction, Antoine Petit would read two separate reports to the Faculty in 1764 and 1766 (both published in this two volume set in 1766). With the first Report, Petit focused on using well-reasoned and accessible discourse to refocus the Public away from the emotionality of the debate, and to focus instead on the (national) ideal of Public Health, and the resulting benefits that a future without smallpox would bring. With the second Report, Petit and his colleagues addressed the specific concerns of the Ant'Inoculistes; including a post-script addressing their popular talking-point concerning the breakthrough infection of Madame la Duchesse de Bouffleurs (who managed to acquire smallpox despite having previously been inoculated). Ultimately, in 1768, a majority of the Medical Faculty would respond to the Parisian Court with a ruling in favour of the public adoption of inoculation, albeit without universal mandates.

With 5 OCLC records discovered in North America; uncommon to the trade.
 

With Edward Jenner's discovery happening in the midst of the French Revolutionary Wars, it took some time before the smallpox vaccine would successfully cross the English Channel. Key to this migration was the return of the Duke de La Rochefoucauld-Liancort from exile; with the Duke soon-after organizing a Society committed to a thorough investigation of Jenner's vaccine claims, composed of the likes of Talleyrand and Lucien-Bonaparte.

Thus, under the august direction of Philippe Pinel and Michel-Augustin Thouret, the Société commissioned a Comité Central de Vaccine in 1800 to commence rigorous experimentation of the vaccine’s safety and efficacy, whilst organizing—and directing logistics for—Paris’ first free vaccination clinic for volunteers.

Here, after three years of successful study, the Comité was prepared to issue its final report, confidently recommending the adoption of the English innovation. The report being prefaced by a letter of approval from Jean-Antoine Chaptal, as Revolutionary Minister of the Interior.

With a dozen OCLC records discovered in North America.
 

Two early—and quite animated—pro-vaccine works from J. Parfait, doctor to the Prince of Neuchâtel and one of the key members in the experimental vaccination clinic of Philippe Pinel and Michel-Augustin Thouret’s Comité Central de Vaccine in Paris.

In the first-bound work (Mon journal de l’an 1807—ou, Voila les gens du 18me. siècle) Parfait documents his philosophes-fuelled incredulity, in the face of the anti-vaccination sentiment that was spreading throughout Europe; taking particular aim at three recently-translated English critiques of Jenner (from William, Rowley, and Moseley), which he accuses of misinformation. With clear anxiety for a post-truth culture, Parfait returns to the theme of education-as-practice, reproducing a 1764 letter from Rousseau on the matter.

The second-bound work was first published in much-shorter form (23 pp.) as Parfait’s thesis in 1804. In addition to offering rich anecdotes from Parfait's participation in the earliest French vaccination campaign, it’s notable for preserving the prospectus of the Societé pour l’extinction de la petite-vérole en France par la propagation de la vaccine, as well as a number of vaccination documents/forms from the Bureau de la Societé de la Vaccine (Ministère de l’Intérieur).

Somewhat curiously: both works conclude with odes to Joseph Berchaux, the author of the eponymous work La gastronomie (1801).

For the first work: 3 OCLC records discovered (NLM, Yale, and Hamburg); not in BnF. NB: although it’s stated as second edition to title page, there is no record of a first. For the second work, OCLC records 5 copies; three of those outside of the Continent (Wellcome, Harvard, NLM).
 

With the smallpox vaccine dependent on successfully extracting biological material from livestock infected with cowpox, Jenner's discovery required logistical innovation before it could begin to show population-level benefits. (One of the reasons for the slow uptake of the vaccine in France: four failed attempts at successfully importing, transporting, and administering the vaccine). 

Reporting to the Commissione Centrale di Vaccina in Turin, the Italian vaccine pioneer (and veterinarian) Michele Buniva here details a step-by-step series of practical measures to secure a stable supply of "perfect" (as opposed to "false" or "bastard") vaccine for Piedmont—from the minutiae of extracting materials from infected cows, to developing standards for transportation, conservation, and human inoculation. Bound at rear: two sample forms from the Département du Pô (printed in French), for officials to use in registering individual vaccinations and smallpox infections.

A scarce pamphlet from an important figure in the history of vaccination. With 3 OCLC records discovered in North America (NLM, Yale, UCLA); only a single Italian copy located via SBN.
 

From the final years of Giambattista Bodoni's output, while he was working on his Manuale tipografico; an impassioned didactic poem on the triumph of the smallpox vaccine, of which Jenner himself noted in a letter: "I have very lately received from Italy, a poem Il trionfo della vaccinia, by Gioachino Ponta, who, I hope, is a bard of celebrity, for he has spun it out to between 4,000 and 5,000 lines. It is beautifully printed, at the famous press of Bodoni at Parma. Knowing nothing of the language in which it is written, it lies before me in tantalizing shape. I shall bring it to town. If it is a good thing, cannot we transform it into English?" 

Dedicated to Joachim Murat (then-known as Gioacchino Napoleone, King of Naples), Ponta's poem unfolds across five cantos (with lengthy appendices of footnotes)—in which he sings of the origins and spread of smallpox, the practice of variolation ("la cura arabica"), the bourgeoning understanding of infectious diseases (including syphilis), and finally, Jenner's discovery of the vaccine and its adoption, both throughout Europe and locally. Notably, despite Jenner's curiosity, the poem was not translated into English.

With over a dozen OCLC records discovered in North America; this copy issuing from the famous library of Dimitrij Petrovich, Comte de Boutourlin.
 

A doctor from Saluzzo, Tommaso Gensana had delivered an impassioned speech against anti-vaxxers to the Società d'Agricoltura in 1808 (published in the following year as Del vajuolo vaccino...). As follow-up, the local Napoleonic Prefect asked Gensana to compose a didactic text that could function as discursive antidote; with Gensana here offering his "catéchisme de vaccine: clair, précis, écrit dans la langue la plus familière au peuple, et par le moyen duquel on répandrait aisément la connaissance de tout ce qu'il y a d'essentiel à savoir sur ce spécifique..."

The text is organized in question-and-answer format, covering general principles of vaccine science, concerns over safety and symptoms, as well as specific curiosities (such as how cowpox is extracted and conserved). This copy enhanced by a contemporary reader, whose quite-detailed notes engage with Gensana's text; sometimes skeptically, with cross-references. 

Scarce. With a single OCLC record discovered (BnF); another six Italian copies via SBN.
 

Dedicated to heads-of-household and educators—who he names as the protectors of the nation’s most important “natural resource;” i.e. the health of the next generation—Dr. Luigi Emiliani here offers counsel on the merits of vaccination (and dispels the arguments of its critics), based on his twenty years of experience. Said experience is rendered quite concrete—with almost shocking disregard for privacy—through the twelve double-paged tables that display the names, ages, and locales of the 85 patients whose vaccinations he oversaw during that period. 

The work concludes with two striking plates depicting infected children, which Emiliani offers as annotated reference—so that guardians can distinguish between smallpox and chickenpox, and can monitor the progress of the vaccine’s normal 14 day course of symptoms (with a rather clever instance of information visualization; as the symptoms progress upwards, along the child's arm). 

Called to the Chair in Clinical and Practical Medicine at the University of Modena in 1823, Emiliani would publish a dozen works on epidemiology and infectious diseases. 

With 9 OCLC records discovered in North America; some of those records only noting a single folding plate.
 

In the same year that the celebrated doctor Maurizio Bufalini received the Chair in Clinical Medicine at Santa Maria Nuova in Florence, he was commissioned by the Magistrate of Ancona to write this tract—"con parole di amore"—to reassure citizens of the efficacy of vaccines; two decades after their introduction. 

Bufalini—who would help usher in an evidence-based approach to medical education—here addresses a popular anxiety about the potential failure of Jenner's vaccine, amidst a resurgence of smallpox infections, even amongst the vaccinated. While mentioning the dangers of "false" vaccination (from failed batches), Bufalini spends the majority of the text introducing his readers to statistical/probabilistic thinking (to overcome the hyperboles of the anecdotal). 

Scarce, with only a single OCLC record discovered (Wellcome); another 2 Italian copies in SBN.
 

A concise biography of the celebrated Buniva, published in the year following his death (the text first appearing in the Repertorio medico-chirurgico del Piemonte). Addressing his roles as vaccine pioneer, veterinarian, instructor, medical practitioner, and public health official. With a list of his Society memberships/awards and a bibliography.

With single OCLC record discovered (Lyon); an additional 6 Italian copies via SBN.
 

A group of 16 publications from the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum in Dresden; the pioneering public health institution that emerged from the 1911 International Hygiene Exhibition, spearheaded by German industrialist—and mouthwash/toothpaste entrepreneur—Karl August Lingner (1861-1916). 

Under the symbol of the all-seeing eye of the Hygiene movement, the Museum was at the forefront of the post-War wave of public education, combining state-of-the-art technologies and information visualization techniques with lifelike models to communicate knowledge of anatomy, diet, and proactive health care to the masses of the Weimar Republic.

Comprised of eight exhibition catalogues, five monographs, and three museum guides, the present group documents the themes explored by the Museum over a 35 year period (e.g. tuberculosis, women's and workers' health, venereal diseases, dental and sleep hygiene); notably capturing the subsumption of the Museum's public health agenda by Nazi ideology (e.g. heredity, race, bio-metrics). The erratum slip bound-into a 1938 Museum guide makes it clear that the previously-published text needed to be approached by readers in light of the "new period of advancement" that the country had embarked upon.
 

For its first few decades, the Hygiene-Museum was without a proper home, until the celebrated architect Wilhelm Kreis took up the cause, with his purpose-built museum completed in-time for the 1930-1931 International Hygiene Exposition. It would remain the Museum’s permanent home until being destroyed by Allied bombs in 1945. 

Here: an early report on the progress of the building's construction, with documentation of the laying of the foundation stone on October 7, 1927.

With only a single OCLC record discovered in North America (NLM).
 

This collection of tourist postcards, mostly self-published by Dresden's Hygiene-Museum for its visitors, offers a window onto museological marketing over the course of five decades—as well as a view onto visitor experience, with dozens of these postcards enhanced by manuscript commentaries (in both German and French). With a notable emphasis on the Museum's blend of neo-classical/New Objectivist architecture.

More images available upon request.
 

Presumably produced by the Hygiene-Museum for the purpose of a traveling exhibition, this Weimar-era group of photographic slides represents idealized themes of gender and class in everyday life: e.g. women's and men's labour, hygiene, recreation, childhood, clothing, domestic rituals and interiors, etc. 

The slides labelled A-C represent three classes of labour: farming, "brain-work," and manual labour; with the vast majority of the numbered slides representing women's labour.

More images available upon request.
 

Not long after the War, efforts were swiftly pursued to reconstruct the Wilhelm Kreis-designed Museum that was destroyed by Allied bombing. Here, in 1946, lottery tickets were being issued as fundraiser, with prizes ranging from 1-1000 Reichsmark. With a simple sketch of the Museum's entrance featured to the interior.

This ticket won nothing.
 

A rich catalogue of the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum's various didactic objects for sale, introduced by the Museum's Director: "The great representative exhibitions of hygiene with the Glass Men and anatomic models, with which the Hygiene-Museum has been wandering through numerous countries, have rendered its name well-known throughout the world. Many people, however, do not know that the Museum is at the same time the largest centre of production of anatomic and biologic educational materials ... by which valuable help in teaching is given to the teachers of various schools, courses, and universities all the world over."

With only 2 OCLC records discovered in North America (NLM, Montreal); no copies discovered via Library Hub. This copy lacks price-list / ordering form that was presumably inserted into the flap at rear pastedown (although none mentioned in library records).