Henry Austin Martin | |
---|---|
Born | |
Died | December 7, 1884 | (aged 60)
Alma mater | Harvard Medical School |
Known for | Smallpox vaccine |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Public health |
Henry Austin Martin (23 July 1824 – 7 December 1884) was an English-born American physician known for introducing the method of production and use of smallpox vaccine lymph from calves. He was the first American physician to experiment successfully with a vaccine for the bovine virus.[1]
Martin was born on 23 July 1824 in London, England. His father was Henry James Martin, Esq. M. R. C. S.[2]
Martin graduated from Harvard Medical School with an MD in 1845.[2]
Martin was a staff surgeon with the U. S. Vols and a Brevet Lieutenant Colonel "for gallant and meritorious services" in a wartime campaign.[2][3]
Martin is best known for standardizing a method of vaccine production from calves that had been used for at least a century, the technique of which was utilized by Aventis-Pasteur.[4] The vaccine was thought to have saved Boston from a potentially catastrophic 1873 epidemic, but he was widely criticized by medical peers and the general public.[4] Human lymph later became illegal in the United States since it no longer provided adequate immunity, and played a role in the 1905 Supreme Court case JACOBSON v. MASSACHUSETTS regarding compulsory vaccination.[4]
Vaccinia virus, a member of the poxvirus family, affected rodents and is believed to have become extinct in the late 1800s. It is a critical component of the modern smallpox vaccine. Survival of the vaccinia is credited to Martin, sons Francis and Stephen, and Martin's lineage of pupils who preserved the virus in a laboratory setting.[4]
Later in his career, Martin was an advocate for bovine vaccines which were thought to preserve potency and mitigate the risk of syphilis transmission.[4] He worked against anti-vaccination activists, and exposed fraudulent manufacturers whose vaccines were both unsafe and ineffective.[4]
He was the Vaccine Committee chair for the American Medical Association.
Martin married Francis Coffin Crosby (born 16 Nov 1825). They had the following children:
The family is buried in Lowell Cemetery in Lowell, Massachusetts.