Les effets de la vaccination antivariolique en Suède : protection des enfants et menace nouvelle pour les adultes

In: Annales de démographie historique: ADH, Band 1997, Heft 1, S. 47-87

Abstract

Smallpox was one of the great killers during the eighteenth century. This essay studies the impact of the disease in the mortality decline and provides an demographie structure of smallpox mortality. However, for a better understanding of epidemie diseases we must also consider cultural and social aspects and answer the question how the causes of smallpox were explained and understood by the public. Smallpox did not only concern mortality, it will be concluded that also nuptiality and marriage stratégies were affected. The appearance of the disease changed when vaccination was introduced in the beginning of the nineteenth century. The important factors for the implementation of this preventive measure will be analyzed and in a concluding discussion will stress vaccination as being most important for the décliné of smallpox mortality, thereby criticizing theories which prefer to see a changing virulence as the decisive factor.