Lectures

This lecture provides a general overview of the history of vaccines. Beginning with the development of smallpox vaccination, it discusses the trial and use of anti-toxins, the development of vaccines against yellow fever, tuberculosis, polio, and the movement to combined vaccines like DTP and MMR.

Polio vaccination is a procedure cloaked by international politics, scientific development, and the establishment of medical ethics. This lecture covers the origins of distrust in polio vaccination and the connections to modern legacies.

In 1900, a small number of plague infections were reported on the west coast of both the United States and Canada. The resulting events demonstrate how racist rhetoric surrounds disease-containment strategies in history and how Asian populations resisted these prejudices.

An overview of the history of anti-vaccination from the nineteenth century to the present. This lecture provides context and understanding to the major arguments seen in anti-vaccination circles today by connecting them to their historical origin and development.

A case study overview of how cultural and ethnic differences lead to protest and violence in times of epidemic. The outbreak of smallpox in Montreal in 1885 was a trigger for the eruption of tensions across the city and one of the most famous anti-vaccination riots in history.