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.

Henry Austin Martin
Born(1824-07-23)July 23, 1824
London, England
DiedDecember 7, 1884(1884-12-07) (aged 60)
Lowell, Massachusetts
Alma materHarvard Medical School
Known forSmallpox vaccine
Scientific career
FieldsPublic health

Early life and education

Birth

Martin was born on 23 July 1824 in London, England. His father was Henry James Martin, Esq. M. R. C. S.[1]

Martin married Francis Coffin Crosby (born 16 Nov 1825).[1] They had the following children:

Education

Martin graduated from Harvard Medical School with an MD in 1845.[1] He received an honorary A.M. from Dartmouth.[4]

Death

The family is buried in Lowell Cemetery in Lowell, Massachusetts.[5]

Career

Martin was a staff surgeon with the U. S. Vols and a Brevet Lieutenant Colonel "for gallant and meritorious services" in a wartime campaign.[1][6]

He is also the namesake of Martin's Bandage,[7][8][9] as well as Martin cartilage clamp, Martin incision, Martin vigorimeter, and Martin's Disease (periosteoarthritis of the foot from excessive walking).[10]

Martin is best known for standardizing a method of vaccine production from calves which had been used for at least a century, the technique of which was utilized by Aventis-Pasteur.[5] 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.[5] Human lymph later became illegal in the United States since it no longer provided adequate immunity, and apparently played a role in the 1905 supreme court case JACOBSON v. MASSACHUSETTS regarding compulsory vaccination.[5]

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.[5]

Later in his career, Martin was an advocate for bovine vaccines which were thought to preserve potency and mitigate risk of syphilis transmission.[5] He worked against anti-vaccination activists, and exposed fraudulent manufacturers whose vaccines were both unsafe and ineffective.[5]

Awards and honors
  • American Medical Association Vaccine Committee chair
  • Martin's vaccine contribution will be commemorated by a historical marker at 27 Dudley Street, in the Roxbury section of Boston, where Martin lived and produced smallpox vaccine in a barn behind his house.

Publications
  • Scientific American, "The Cultivation of Vaccine Virus", 20 November 1880, p. 325
  • Letters of Henry A. Martin[11]
  • AMA vs. Henry Martin[12]
  • A Few Words on "unfortunate Results of Vaccination"[13]
  • 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[14]

References
  1. Crosby, Nathan (1877). A Crosby Family. Josiah Crosby, Sarah Fitch .. and Their Descendants. Stone, Huse & Company, book and job printers. p. 92.
  2. Foster, Joseph (1887). The Royal Lineage of Our Noble and Gentle Families: Together with Their Paternal Ancestry ... Hatchards. pp. 587, 594, 595.
  3. Society, Sons of the American Revolution California (1901). Register of the California Society of the Sons of the American Revolution: Instituted at San Francisco, California, October 22d, 1875 as Sons of Revolutionary Sires. p. 99.
  4. University, Harvard (1915). Quinquennial Catalogue of the Officers and Graduates of Harvard University, 1636-1915. Harvard University Press. p. 608.
  5. Buder, John (14 October 2002). "Heroes of Public Health: Henry Austin Martin (1824-1884)". H-Sci-Med-Tech.
  6. College, Dartmouth (1880). General Catalogue of Dartmouth College and the Associated Institutions: Including the Officers of Government and Instruction, Graduates and All Others who Have Received Honorary Degrees. Dartmouth Press. p. 167.
  7. The american illustrated medical dictionary. 1917. p. 578.
  8. Byrne, William S. (1 November 1879). "Some Practical Remarks on the Use of Martin's Bandage". The Lancet. 114 (2931): 645–646. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(02)48064-6.
  9. Martin, Henry A. (1878). "The India-Rubber Bandage For Ulcers And Other Diseases Of The Legs". The British Medical Journal. 2 (930): 624–626. ISSN 0007-1447. JSTOR 25248422.
  10. "Martin, Henry A". TheFreeDictionary.com. Retrieved 6 June 2021.
  11. Martin, Henry Austin (1991). Letters of Henry Austin Martin: The Vaccination Correspondence to Thomas Fanning Wood, 1877-1883. University of Texas at Austin.
  12. Martin, Henry Austin (1871). 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.
  13. Martin, Henry Austin (1880). A Few Words on "unfortunate Results of Vaccination".
  14. Martin, Henry Austin (1857). Hahnemann and Paracelsus.
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