The Story of Dr. Jenner

This episode of The Passing Parade concerns itself with Edward Jenner and the benefits of vaccination. When I was growing up, with polio and measles freshly conquered, the benefits of vaccination were an obvious and unremarkable truth, like grass being green or water wet.

What?! The grass looks purple to you? Better see an ophthalmologist! Water makes you thirsty? You're obviously sick. Yet in the last ten years or so, we have seen the rise of "Anti-Vaxxers", and their belief that materials which are no longer used in injections can cause autism. And guess what? Diseases thought destroyed in the US have returned because what is called "herd immunity" has declined. You don't want your child stupid? How about dead?

That's what makes pieces like this, commonplace though they may seem, so important. This series of MGM shorts, as well as the radio feature it was based on, celebrated the ordinary. Not a bad thing.