<i>The Contagion of Liberty: The Politics of Smallpox in the American Revolution</i>, by Andrew M. Wehrman

The Contagion of Liberty offers a fascinating examination of smallpox before and during the American Revolution, and in the early years of the American Republic with particular focus on the “liberty” of inoculation. Andrew Wehrman’s framing of inoculation as liberty allows for a nuanced integration of the history of medicine with the social, cultural, and political history of the colonial settler communities. With the integration of these histories Wehrman shows why colonists desired to adopt protection against smallpox and how this desire was often at odds with the wishes of their communities and local governments who feared the spread of the disease through post-inoculation contagion. The desire for personal protection from disease is also framed as fomenting revolutionary sentiment in the colonial communities. According to Wehrman, “The potent fears of smallpox possessed by colonials helped them connect the intellectual ideologies of Revolutionary leaders to their personal lives, a crucial step in creating revolution” (5).Wehrman relies heavily on narrative depictions of the trials that colonists went through to access smallpox protection through inoculation and later vaccination (after Edward Jenner’s experiments reached America in 1799). The narrative style makes the book extremely readable and successfully draws its audience in to the subject matter through personal primary source accounts of the colonists’ worldviews. However, some of these narrative forays seem to be scant on source material possibly due to editorial decisions. There are several instances where it appears that primary sources are being quoted—indicated through quotation marks—but there is no accompanying endnote reference. Thus, although the subject matter of the book is situated within the historiography of smallpox and the American Revolution, and is published by a university press, it seems more designed for a popular audience.The primary organization of The Contagion of Liberty is chronological. Chapter 1 details how colonial medical practitioners devoiced inoculation from its origins in Africa and reframed the practice as distinctly American in the early eighteenth century. This reframing coincided with the adoption of inoculation by Princess Caroline and other elites in Britain in the 1720s. Chapters 2 through 5 detail various attempts to promote inoculation, and the sometimes violent responses to these attempts in local communities. The disastrous smallpox outbreak during the Continental Army’s invasion of Quebec in 1775 and the eventual adoption of inoculation throughout the army are the subjects of chapters 6 and 7. The remaining chapters, chapter 8 through 10, describe the civilian impact of the decision to inoculate the Continental Army in civilian communities during and after the war, with chapter 10 discussing the introduction of vaccination. As outlined above, Wehrman’s work is very much a story of colonists and European bodies. There is minimal discussion of the effects of smallpox on Indigenous peoples or enslaved Africans. Discussion of African medical practices, and the influence that these practices had on American adoption of inoculation, is the focus of the opening of chapter 1 but is not featured elsewhere in the book. The decision to omit a detailed discussion of the impact of smallpox on Indigenous communities also means that Wehrman is unable to meaningfully engage with much of the last twenty years of smallpox historiography in America, most crucially Elizabeth Fenn’s Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775–82 (2002).Through its accessible style The Contagion of Liberty has widespread appeal and would be particularly useful to introduce undergraduate students to debates about medicine, personal liberty, and collective responsibility in the eighteenth century. The main argument of the book, tying a quest for inoculation to revolutionary ideals, is novel and demonstrates how the history of medicine is not separate from contemporary and political and social debates, but rather intrinsically connected to them. The broader integration of the history of medicine with wider investigations of American identity and the American Revolution is welcomed.

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