Was change in medical practice revolutionary or evolutionary during the Age of Revolution? Enquiry focus 1

Vaccination

Suitable for students aged 14+

1. Watch

Ask students to watch the Vaccination video. Ask them to write down any important points about the development of vaccinations during the Age of Revolution.

If you are watching with the students, pause the video to help them reflect on the questions below as well as considering the types of questions the historians are asking. Highlight the different sources Dr Frampton refers to in order to uncover attitudes at the time.

Can students answer the following questions?

How long had the vaccination lancet been in use for?
How did the idea of vaccination become popular?
Why did some people disagree with vaccinations?

2. Test

Students can try this multiple choice quiz this multiple choice quiz to see how much they have remembered from the video. Students working at home can save their answers as a PDF and email them to teachers.

3. Research

Edward Jenner is widely remembered as the inventor of vaccination even though the historian in the video notes that he was not the first to use the method. Ask students to conduct some independent research on Edward Jenner and produce a factfile on his life and work for other students of the History of Medicine to use. They should think about the following:

his medical work
how he changed peoples’ ideas
the challenges he faced.

The smallpox vaccinator from our Revolutionary collection is a good place to start. Students could be encouraged to place their studies of Jenner into a wider context through their research. How does his work on cowpox relate to other aspects of the period?

4. Connect

In the video, Dr Frampton discusses a cartoon image, by James Gillray, of people being vaccinated. Satirical images like this were very important during the Age of Revolution. Ask students to use the links below to look at two other cartoons from our Revolutionary collection:

The plumb pudding in danger

The blessings of peace or the curse of the corn law

For each object, they make notes about how it:

portrays the characters shown in the cartoon
tries to change the minds of people viewing it

How influential do they think cartoons like this would have been?

Groups of students could be asked to explore different objects from the printing revolution theme to develop a sense of the period.

5. Think

This enquiry focuses on whether medical change was evolutionary or revolutionary. Ask students to think about what these words mean and whether they have used them before in history. How might we begin to make judgements about medical changes in this period? In class this could be completed through paired or small group discussion. If students are studying at home they could be encouraged to use email or virtual chats to discuss these ideas.

6. Reflect

This enquiry focuses on the patterns of change in medical practice that we can see during the Age of Revolution and whether this was revolutionary or evolutionary. Ask students to produce a diagram to show their thoughts about what sort of change the vaccination lancet brought. They could use a diagram like this example.

Explain that the centre of the diagram represents an evolutionary change i.e. something slow and steady; possibly with some points of regression (backwards movement). The outside of the diagram represents revolutionary change i.e. something fast and explosive which changed peoples’ lives or ideas rapidly.

There are five points between the centre of the diagram and the outside. First, students decide whether they think the change brought by vaccinations was evolutionary, revolutionary or somewhere in between on a scale of 1-5 and mark this on the diagram with a cross. They then add brief notes to explain why they have chosen to give vaccination this score.

As they study more objects from this overall enquiry, they will add to this diagram to get an overall impression of whether they think medical change in the period was evolutionary or revolutionary. As students develop their diagram of the pattern of change encourage them to think about the criteria they are using for deciding whether a change is evolutionary or revolutionary. They should also be encouraged to explore other themes to broaden their knowledge and understanding of the period.

7. Extend

There were a lot of other ways in which people tried to change the world during the Age of Revolution. Students could read this blog about the Swing riots, and look at this letter from Captain Swing, and think about how this protest fits into their understanding of the period. Students could keep a separate timeline or mind map to use as a record of their period understanding as it develops.