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Citizen Medicine Hewish (A COMMENT BOOKS & ARTS and the lab’s Radio Astronomy Group, MEDICAL RESEARCH led by Martin Ryle, had a series of suc- cesses, most famously the discovery of pulsars by Jocelyn Bell Burnell in 1967, working with her supervisor Antony Citizen medicine Hewish (A. Hewish et al. Nature 217, 709–713; 1968). By this time, the Sally Frampton and Sally Shuttleworth explore a show Cavendish was so large that its director on public involvement in the evolution of vaccination. was not so much a powerful commander- in-chief as chair of a company, as Longair aptly describes it. he introduction of vaccination in Vaccination: centuries, pamphlets The lab’s research had outgrown its the late eighteenth century is often Medicine and the from Britain’s National space: the number working there had viewed as a defining moment, when Masses Anti-Vaccination risen from around a dozen in the 1870s Tmodern medicine began to stem the ravages Hunterian Museum, League and others London. to some 40 times that number. In 1973, of disease. But it has not just been down to Until 17 September played on fears that the the next director, Brian Pippard, moved pioneering doctors: members of the public 2016. procedure poisoned the Cavendish to much larger premises in have been significant in shaping the devel- children’s blood and West Cambridge, the workplace of about opment of vaccination, both as practitioners laid them open to a host of diseases. Resist- 1,000 people. Longair chronicles this move and as critics. Vaccination: Medicine and the ance grew to the British government’s com- and presents the achievements of Pippard Masses, an exhibition at the Royal College of pulsory smallpox-vaccination programme, and his successors as Cavendish Profes- Surgeons’ Hunterian Museum in London, established in 1853. By 1907, the programme sor of Physics, Sam Edwards and Richard seeks to unravel those threads with photo­ was effectively abolished. Friend, with detail that will satisfy the graphs, letters, pamphlets, specimens and The diseases have changed, but scepticism most assiduous reader of annual reports. medical devices. remains dangerous — not least because of 2016 DISNEY•PIXAR The breadth The exhibition is part of Constructing the lingering impact of Andrew Wakefield’s and depth of the “Rutherford Scientific Communities (http://conscicom. discredited work hinting at a link between areas of phys- kept an eye org), a project on citizen science past and the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) jab ics now being on almost present for which we are researcher (S.F.) and and autism, published almost 20 years ago. explored by every research principal investigator (S.S.). In 1798, physi- US and UK outbreaks of measles in recent the laboratory project.” cian Edward Jenner published An Inquiry years have had a strong correlation with are remark- into the Causes and Effects of the Variolæ vaccine refusal. able: all its previous specialities, as well Vaccinæ (a draft manuscript features in the As highlighted by Constructing Scientific as every­thing from optoelectronics to exhibition). It showed that protection from Communities, citizen science now benefits medical physics, thin-film magnetism the deadly, disfiguring disease smallpox could from digital platforms such as Zooniverse, and the physics that underlies studies of be conferred by exposure to the much milder which enable projects that range from the sustainability of the global economy. cowpox. Jenner’s experiments convinced identifying galaxies to analysing cancer Longair’s history is in the form of a fellow medics, but were themselves inspired cells. That potential makes it timely now well-organized modern physics book, by the observations of farming communities to look back to when barriers between pro- most of its 22 sections replete with charts, in southwest England that milkmaids (prone fessional and amateur science had not yet tables and lucid technical explanations to cowpox infection, acquired by handling been erected. Researchers are looking, for presented neatly in boxes. Abundant the udders of infected animals) hardly ever instance, at mass involvement in Victorian diagrams, photographs, line drawings, caught smallpox. public-health movements such as the drive floor-plans and facsimiles of historical Local knowledge and volunteers remain to stop air and water pollution, and at the documents give fascinating insights into key to successful vaccination programmes. local natural-history groups whose records the lab’s development. Very much the The Global Polio Eradication Initiative, for still serve as benchmarks. With Zooniverse, account of an insider, the book would example, has involved more than 20 million we are creating projects drawing on histori- have benefited from a wider international volunteers since it began in 1988, many work- cal records of the era: Diagnosis London, perspective. ing in dangerous conditions (H. J. Larson and for instance, will enable people to analyse It would also have been interesting I. Ghinai Nature 473, 446–447; reports of the nineteenth-century Medical to hear more about the challenges that 2011). One story highlighted Officers of Health for London. the lab faces to preserve its eminence. in the exhibition focuses on Like Vaccination, these projects Rutherford kept an eye on almost every Ali Maow Maalin, the Somali offer fascinating insights into the research project — no longer feasible for cook who was the last person lives of people faced with an array even the most energetic director — and to be infected with naturally of public-health challenges, and took personal responsibility for keeping occurring smallpox. After he into the medical science that is his fiefdom fleet of foot so that it could recovered, Maalin campaigned running to keep up with them. ■ respond quickly to developments. The for polio eradication. He died of main challenge of directing the labora- malaria in 2013, while carrying Sally Frampton is a postdoctoral THE HUNTERIAN MUS. AT ON DISPLAY tory today, I imagine, is to ensure that the out polio vaccinations. researcher at the University of Oxford, elephant can keep dancing. ■ But public resistance has UK, investigating public involvement also dogged vaccination, as in nineteenth-century medicine. Sally Graham Farmelo is a by-fellow at the exhibition makes clear. In Shuttleworth is professor of English FROM DR JENNER’S HOUSE, MUS. & GARDEN; ON LOAN Churchill College of the University the nineteenth and twentieth literature at Oxford. Her latest book is of Cambridge, UK, and author of The Mind of the Child. Churchill’s Bomb. A nineteenth-century ‘shield’, used e-mails: [email protected]; e-mail: [email protected] to protect vaccination sites. [email protected] 324 | NATURE | VOL 534 | 16 JUNE 2016 ©2016 Mac millan Publishers Li mited. All ri ghts reserved. .
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