Individual Rights versus the Public's Health — 100 Years afterJacobsonv.Massachusetts
- 17 February 2005
- journal article
- other
- Published by Massachusetts Medical Society in New England Journal of Medicine
- Vol. 352 (7) , 652-654
- https://doi.org/10.1056/nejmp048209
Abstract
We have on our statute book a law that compels . . . a man to offer up his body to pollution and filth and disease; that compels him to submit to a barbarous ceremonial of blood-poisoning, and virtually to say to a sick calf, “Thou art my savior: in thee do I trust. . . .”— Brief of the Defendant, Commonwealth v. Jacobson, 183 Mass. 242 (1903)Upon the principle of self-defense, of paramount necessity, a community has the right to protect itself against an epidemic of disease which threatens the safety of its members.— Supreme Court . . .Keywords
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