Henry Rider Haggard (1856-1925) was and is a popular and prolific author mostly known for his adventure novels set in exotic locations. Not merely a successful novelist, he was also involved in the social welfare of his countryside, as is demonstrated by his non-fictional works such as A Farmer’s Year (1899). It is precisely in this latter book that we may read for the first time about the interest Haggard took in the English Vaccination Acts, thus enabling us to retrace the genesis of his novel Doctor Therne (1898). This novel, that Haggard himself defined as ‘my only novel with a purpose’ and that remains one of its kind in the writer’s production, indeed deals with ‘the matter of the Anti-Vaccination craze’ by recounting, in autobiographical form, the story of a fictional doctor who renounces his belief in the safety and necessity of vaccines when he becomes a Radical candidate for Parliament, and makes anti-vaccination the main item of his election address.1 The present essay explores the way Haggard exploited the form of the novel to accurately represent the various instances of the anti-vaccination movement of his contemporaries. It presents a close reading of select passages in the novel, comparing them with anti-vaccination tracts and pamphlets produced by prominent anti-vaccinationists in Victorian England. This investigation is informed by an overarching reflection on the power of literature to reproduce and understand the complexities underlying medico-scientific as well as socio-political debates, and therefore to effectively enter controversies where facts and fiction, information and misinformation, may be closely – sometimes inextricably – intertwined. The aim is not only to analyse a novel that remains unexplored and understudied, but also to stress the value and purpose of narration ‘when medical matters – especially if mishandled by the media and politicians, as they so often are – can assume such strong antisocial feelings’.
"You taught us that which you knew not to be the truth": The Anti-Vaccination Medical Doctor in Henry Rider Haggard's Doctor Therne (1898)
Fiammenghi Carlotta
2024-01-01
Abstract
Henry Rider Haggard (1856-1925) was and is a popular and prolific author mostly known for his adventure novels set in exotic locations. Not merely a successful novelist, he was also involved in the social welfare of his countryside, as is demonstrated by his non-fictional works such as A Farmer’s Year (1899). It is precisely in this latter book that we may read for the first time about the interest Haggard took in the English Vaccination Acts, thus enabling us to retrace the genesis of his novel Doctor Therne (1898). This novel, that Haggard himself defined as ‘my only novel with a purpose’ and that remains one of its kind in the writer’s production, indeed deals with ‘the matter of the Anti-Vaccination craze’ by recounting, in autobiographical form, the story of a fictional doctor who renounces his belief in the safety and necessity of vaccines when he becomes a Radical candidate for Parliament, and makes anti-vaccination the main item of his election address.1 The present essay explores the way Haggard exploited the form of the novel to accurately represent the various instances of the anti-vaccination movement of his contemporaries. It presents a close reading of select passages in the novel, comparing them with anti-vaccination tracts and pamphlets produced by prominent anti-vaccinationists in Victorian England. This investigation is informed by an overarching reflection on the power of literature to reproduce and understand the complexities underlying medico-scientific as well as socio-political debates, and therefore to effectively enter controversies where facts and fiction, information and misinformation, may be closely – sometimes inextricably – intertwined. The aim is not only to analyse a novel that remains unexplored and understudied, but also to stress the value and purpose of narration ‘when medical matters – especially if mishandled by the media and politicians, as they so often are – can assume such strong antisocial feelings’.
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