{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,9,24]],"date-time":"2025-09-24T19:40:13Z","timestamp":1758742813617,"version":"3.44.0"},"reference-count":69,"publisher":"BMJ","issue":"3","content-domain":{"domain":["bmj.com"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Med Humanities"],"accepted":{"date-parts":[[2021,3,10]]},"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2021,9]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>The nineteenth century British antivaccination movement attracted popular and parliamentary support and ultimately saw the 1853 law which had made smallpox vaccination compulsory nullified by the 1898 \u2018conscientious objector\u2019 clause. In keeping with popular public health discourse of the time, the movement had employed rhetoric associated with sanitary science and liberalism. In the early twentieth century new discoveries in bacteriology were fuelling advances in vaccination and the medical establishment was increasingly pushing for public health to move towards more interventionist medical approaches. With the onset of war in 1914, the medical establishment hoped to persuade the government to introduce compulsory typhoid inoculation for soldiers. This article analyses antivaccination literature, mainstream newspapers and medical press along with parliamentary debates to examine how the British antivaccination movement engaged with this new threat of compulsion by expanding the rhetoric of \u2018conscience\u2019 and emphasising medical freedom while also asserting scientific critique concerning the effectiveness of vaccines and the new laboratory based diagnostic practices. In spite of \u2018conscience\u2019 fitting well with an emerging public health discourse of individual subjectivity, the mainstream press ridiculed the idea of working-class soldiers having a conscience, coalescing around the idea that \u2018conscientious objection\u2019 be reserved for spiritual, philosophical and educated men who objected to military service. Moreover, in spite of engaging in reasoned scientific critique, parliament and press consorted in the demarcation of scientific knowledge as exclusive to medical scientists, reflecting a growing allegiance between the state and the medical establishment during the war. Any scientific arguments critical of medical orthodoxy were subjugated, labelled as \u2018crank\u2019 or \u2018faddist\u2019 as well as unpatriotic. The antivaccination narratives around conscience contributed to or were part of an evolving discourse on consent and ethics in medicine. Potential parallels are drawn with current and likely future debates around vaccination and counterhegemonic scientific approaches.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1136\/medhum-2020-012069","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,5,24]],"date-time":"2021-05-24T13:21:25Z","timestamp":1621862485000},"page":"e7-e7","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1136\/crossmarkpolicy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["War of conscience: antivaccination and the battle for medical freedom during World War I"],"prefix":"10.1136","volume":"47","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-9478-9932","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Susan","family":"McPherson","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Health and Social Care, University of Essex, Colchester CO4 3SQ, UK"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"239","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,5,24]]},"reference":[{"key":"2025092412182901000_47.3.e7.1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1177\/0038038593027003004"},{"key":"2025092412182901000_47.3.e7.2","unstructured":"Armstrong David . A new history of identity: a sociology of medical knowledge: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002."},{"key":"2025092412182901000_47.3.e7.3","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1080\/13688804.2012.721644"},{"issue":"1918","key":"2025092412182901000_47.3.e7.4","first-page":"623","article-title":"Medical practitioners and military service","volume":"623","year":"1918","journal-title":"British medical journal"},{"key":"2025092412182901000_47.3.e7.5","unstructured":"Bryder Linda . Below the Magic Mountain: A Social History of Tuberculosis in Twentieth-Century Britain. Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1988."},{"issue":"4","key":"2025092412182901000_47.3.e7.6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"461","DOI":"10.1017\/S0025727300069702","article-title":"Medical police and the history of public health","volume":"46","author":"Carroll","year":"2002","journal-title":"Medical History"},{"key":"2025092412182901000_47.3.e7.7","unstructured":"Cecil H , \u201cTreatment of conscientious Objectors,\u201d The Times, October 17, 1916."},{"key":"2025092412182901000_47.3.e7.8","unstructured":"Company Officer , \u201cAnti-Enteric inoculation,\u201d The Times, February 12, 1915."},{"key":"2025092412182901000_47.3.e7.9","unstructured":"Daily Express , \u201cMatters of moment,\u201d, February 10, 1915."},{"key":"2025092412182901000_47.3.e7.10","unstructured":"Daily Express , \u201cNational work for Objectors,\u201d, January 20, 1916."},{"key":"2025092412182901000_47.3.e7.11","unstructured":"Daily Express , \u201cCrank appeal,\u201d, June 13, 1916."},{"key":"2025092412182901000_47.3.e7.12","unstructured":"Daily Express , \u201cWhile others suffer,\u201d, November 16, 1917."},{"key":"2025092412182901000_47.3.e7.13","unstructured":"Deb HC , \u201cInoculation Vol. 68 Col. 786,\u201d, November 23, 1914. Retrieved from hansard.parliament.uk"},{"key":"2025092412182901000_47.3.e7.14","unstructured":"Deb HC , \u201cVaccination Regulations, Vol. 66 Col. 35,\u201d, August 26, 1914. Retrieved from hansard.parliament.uk"},{"key":"2025092412182901000_47.3.e7.15","unstructured":"Deb HC , \u201cNumber of Land Forces, Vol. 69, Col. 600-677,\u201d, February 10, 1915. Retrieved from hansard.parliament.uk"},{"key":"2025092412182901000_47.3.e7.16","unstructured":"Deb HC , \u201cInoculation against Disease, Vol. 70 Col. 1427W,\u201d, March 10, 1915. Retrieved from hansard.parliament.uk"},{"key":"2025092412182901000_47.3.e7.17","unstructured":"Deb HC , \u201cAnti-Typhoid Inoculation, Vol. 71, Col.1097,\u201d, May 5, 1915. Retrieved from hansard.parliament.uk"},{"key":"2025092412182901000_47.3.e7.18","unstructured":"Deb HC , \u201cVote A \u2013 Number of Land Forces, Vol. 69, Col. 408-540,\u201d, February 9, 1915. 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North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2005.","DOI":"10.1215\/9780822386506"},{"key":"2025092412182901000_47.3.e7.23","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1086\/386254"},{"key":"2025092412182901000_47.3.e7.24","unstructured":"G.C.P , \u201cThe Benificent bugs,\u201d Daily Express, January 30, 1915."},{"key":"2025092412182901000_47.3.e7.25","unstructured":"Goulton GG . The Main Illusions of Pacifism: A Criticism of Mr. Norman Angell and the Union of Democratic Control. 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