‘Biggest Bacteriological Enterprise the World has yet Seen,’ The Punjab Vaccination Campaign and the Mulkowal Tragedy, 1902-1906

This seminar paper fills a gap in the history of vaccination which typically jumps from the implementation of smallpox vaccination in the mid-nineteenth century to mid-twentieth century campaigns against smallpox and polio.  It is addressed both to historians of public health and global health, and to all with interests in vaccination today, who can learn  from vaccine campaigns in the past.  


The focus is on the vaccines and serums derived in the late 1890s from the work of Waldemar Mordechai Haffkine, a Jewish-Russian scientist, who developed a plague vaccine that was administered to millions of people worldwide . It examines the first non-smallpox mass vaccination campaign, the scale of which has not been widely recognized. In 1902, the Punjab government initiated a project intending to vaccinate over six million people, a campaign that met an abrupt end in the small village of Mulkowal after nineteen people died from a contaminated vaccine. Historians have too easily accepted the narrative (originally suggested by imperial officials) that the Mulkowal tragedy ended the vaccination drive. In fact, popular acceptance of the vaccine continued. Rather, the ways that the Indian press responded (and the British reaction to that press campaign), ultimately proved decisive in ending mass vaccination.   For Indian journalists, the disaster appeared to offer clear evidence for a persistent demand for greater Indian medical autonomy. Middle-class writers argued that Punjabis strongly opposed the vaccine and only Indian doctors could successfully lead the vaccination drive. On the other hand, the British were convinced by (misrepresentative) hostile press reports of the masses, but rejected the idea of Indian doctors serving as leaders. As a result, the first attempt at universal plague vaccination failed.
This case study emphasizes the way a vaccination disaster can inspire different constituencies in unpredictable ways rather than simply leading to straightforward vaccine skepticism.

- this session is free to attend but booking is required.