Henry Austin Martin

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]

Early life[edit]

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]

Career[edit]

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.

Personal life[edit]

Martin married Francis Coffin Crosby (born 16 Nov 1825). They had the following children:

• Henry Maclean (15 May 1849);
• Stephen Crosby, MD (17 September 1850)
• Austin Agnew, AB, LLB (3 November 1851)
• Frances Moody (3 April 1855; 17 Mar 1857)
• Francis Coffin, AB, MD (22 Mar 1858)

The family is buried in Lowell Cemetery in Lowell, Massachusetts.

Awards and honors[edit]

• He is the namesake of Martin's Bandage, as well as Martin's cartilage clamp, Martin incision, Martin vigorimeter, and Martin's Disease (periosteoarthritis of the foot from excessive walking).^[5][6][7][8]
• He received an honorary A.M. from Dartmouth.^[9]
• Martin's vaccine contribution was commemorated by a historical marker at 27 Dudley Street, in the Roxbury section of Boston
• In 1991, John Joseph Buder's dissertation at the University of Texas was Letters of Henry Austin Martin: The Vaccination Correspondence to Thomas Fanning Wood, 1877-1883.

Selected publications[edit]

• Hahnemann and Paracelsus. On Some Ancient Medical Delusions, and Their Connection with Errors Still Existing. An Address Delivered Before the Norfolk District Medical Society, November 11, 1857^[10]
• The American Medical Association Vs. Henry A. Martin, M.D., Member of Said Association, and Late Chairman of Its Committee on Vaccination. Rand, Avery, & Fryf, 1871.
• "The India-Rubber Bandage For Ulcers And Other Diseases Of The Legs". The British Medical Journal vol. 2, no. 930 (1878): 624–626.
• “The Solid Rubber Bandage.” The British Medical Journal, vol. 2, no. 937, 1878, pp. 874–874.
• A Few Words on "unfortunate Results of Vaccination".1880.^[11]

References[edit]