Jacobson's decision to appeal his case to the US Supreme Court was "a mistake that led to one of the most unethical and dangerous legal decisions in American jurisprudence."
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— Bruce Baird (@drbairdonline) July 17, 2021

Jacobson v. Massachusetts

On March 15, 1902, the chairman of the Cambridge Board of Health knocked on the door of the Cambridgeport triple-decker where the Jacobson family lived. The visitor, Dr. E. Edwin Spencer, told Henning Jacobson the board had voted to declare a smallpox outbreak. All Cambridge residents had to be vaccinated if they hadn’t in the past five years. Refusal brought a $5 fine.

Pastor Jacobson refused. He argued he and his son had had bad reactions to earlier vaccinations, and he wouldn’t risk it again.

Three months later, the epidemic reached Jacobson’s Cambridgeport neighborhood, almost to his door. Ambulances brought dozens of his sick and dying neighbors to the nearby hospital.

The city ordered the library, schools and churches all closed. “Nothing less than a panic has been produced by the terrible epidemic of smallpox which has broken out in the city this week,” reported the Cambridge Chronicle on June 21.

Vaccinators, accompanied by police, canvassed the Cambridgeport neighborhood, vaccinating everyone they could get their hands on. Sometimes they vaccinated more than 100 people a day.

On July 17, 1902, Edwin Spencer swore out a criminal complaint against Henning Jacobson. Six days later the pastor found himself before a judge, along with a handful of other Cambridge anti-vaxxers. continues at link