782 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. May
ANTI-
VACCINATION.
I
hail with satisfaction Dr. Carpenter's remonstrance against my
Bill for the abolition of compulsory vaccination as a powerful aid
towards its success. I say this in no disparagement whatever of my
learned opponent's powers of argument, and if on this question
they appear to me weak, inconsistent, and illogical, I attribute
this entirely to the weakness of the cause he champions. Be this
as it may, Dr. Carpenter's attack, made as it is by one who is
universally recognised as the leading representative of
vaccination, affords that oppor- tunity for free and open
discussion the lack of which has been, in my opinion, the only
cause of the continued national faith in what I believe to be an
exploded fallacy and a baseless superstition. Besides, it appears
to me that the very basis of Dr. Carpenter's thesis in- volves a
remarkable recognition of failure, and that its very statement is
sufficient to shake the faith of the stoutest believer in
vaccination; for it amounts to this, that Dr. Carpenter has to put
forth an ex- planation as to the causes of the enormous mortality
from small-pox which, to use his own words, ' doubtless furnishes
a strong prima facie case against the protective
power of vaccination;' and this after three-quarters of a century
of the practice of Jenner's nostrum, a practice continually
extending, until in this country, and in several of the European
States, it has reached a height so great that a mere fraction of
the population escape its infliction. Lest I should be thought to
exaggerate, I will quote Dr. Carpenter's own words in his letter
to the Spectator. He says, referring to the Metropolitan area,
'If the proportion of the vaccinated population to the unvacci- nated
residuum be 300 to 1, and this may be safely asserted to be rather
within than beyond the mark,' &c. &c. &c.
If
Jenner could ever have imagined such favourable conditions for the
' protective' system, he would clearly have held with fervour that
the perfect stamping out of the small-pox was about to become an
accomplished fact, and yet the acknowledged champion of the system
now appears in the field, not to rejoice in the extinction
of small-pox but to explain the reason why in an almost
universally
1882. ANTI-VACCINATI0N. 783
protected
Europe there has occurred an epidemic of small-pox thus referred
to by Dr. Carpenter :—
The
United States have been traversed (in the years 1874-6) by an
epidemic of small-pox which will be long remembered there for its
peculiar virulence and the widespread mortality it occasioned.
This epidemic was clearly the same as that which had prevailed
with somewhat of the same severity not only in this country, but
also over the greater part of Europe two years previously, and
hence there can be little doubt that the high rate of mortality by
which it was every- where characterised must have been due to
general rather than to local causes.
And
what an explanation it is when we get it! Dr. Carpenter gravely
informs us that the reason why so many people died from small-pox
in the epidemic of 1871-2 was the unusually malignant type of the
epidemic. But we used to be assured that one great ex- cellence in
vaccination consisted in greatly diminishing the virulence of the
attack in those whom it could not wholly save. In a letter I have
lately received from the venerable Dr. Buchanan of Glasgow, as ardent
an advocate of the system as Dr. Carpenter himself, he says, ' The
great glory of the immortal Jenner does not consist in his having
extirpated small-pox, which is as rife as ever, but in his
having converted the most loathsome and fatal affection with which
God in His wrath ever afflicted the human race into a trifling and
mild disease.' Under which King, Bezonian ?
Now
if Dr. Carpenter is correct, and vaccination is only
effective against the milder forms of variola, cadit qucestio;
it is clearly not worth while to undergo the now recognised risks
and dangers of vaccination for the sake of protection against so
harmless a disease as that known as ' discrete,' to which of
course the famous Sydenham referred when he declared, ' If no
mischief be done, either by physician or nurse, small-pox is the
most slight and safe of all diseases.'
It
is altogether an illusion that small-pox became a mild
disease consequent on the introduction of vaccination. It was a
mild and a severe disease a century ago and two centuries ago, as
it is at this day. Dr. Wagstaffe, physician to St. Bartholomew's
Hospital, stated the fact accurately in 1722, when he wrote,
'There is scarcely, I believe, so great a difference between any
two distempers in the world as between the best and the worst sort
of small-pox in respect to the dangers which attend them. So true
is that common observation that there is one sort in which a nurse
cannot kill, and another which even a physician cannot cure.'
Dr.
Carpenter, having thus explained (!) why tens of thousands of '
protected' persons were carried off in the late epidemic,
explains further that so far from vaccination having failed to
contend with this epidemic, ' its protective power . . . has never
been so conspicuously manifested.' Surely this is an illustration
of the petitio principii in its most aggravated form.
Dr. Carpenter's argument amounts to
784 THE
NINETEENTH CENTURY. May
this
: (1) We know that vaccination is a very great, if not a
perfect, protection against small-pox, and that where it does not
wholly pro- tect it greatly modifies its severity; (2) therefore,
however frightful the virulence, and however great the rate of
mortality of the late epidemic, its ravages must have been much
greater had not Europe been protected by an almost universal
vaccination.
Dr.
Carpenter puts the ground on which I base my Bill on too narrow a
basis, viz. ' the failure of vaccination to prevent or contend with
the present small-pox epidemic' I propose to abolish compul- sory
vaccination, because I hold compulsion to be utterly
indefensible, and of course the more indefensible because I hold
vaccination itself to be wholly a delusion. Now it is somewhat
remarkable that in Dr. Carpenter's article there is not a word
about compulsion as apart from the question of the advantage of
vaccination. As a defence of the existing system this is, I think,
a serious omission. The two questions are quite distinct—-that
is, it is quite possible to believe in the excellence of
vaccination, and yet to hold that compulsion is both unjust and
impolitic. The reasons for this are obvious. There is nothing new
in the principle that systems of medical treatment are not properly
a subject for the intervention of State rule ; the reverse
prin- ciple, in fact, that majorities should be all-powerful in
matters which have been hitherto left to the exercise of the right
of private judgment, is new, and in many of its illustrations most
unfortunate (as I think) in its results. Upon this question of
vaccination Sir Robert Peel declared that he would be no party to
compulsion. George Canning said in the House of Commons, in 1808,
that he 'could not figure any circumstance whatever that could
induce him to follow up the most favourable report of its
infallibility which might be brought forward with any measure of a
compulsory nature,' while Sir Francis Burdett declared that '
Government in this free country cannot com- pel people to submit
to the prescriptions of physicians or the opera- tions of
surgeons,' and that fine old country gentleman and Tory, the late
Mr. J. W. Henley, declared it as his opinion that' priestly despotism
is bad, but medical despotism is intolerable.' This cer- tainly
was the view which I ventured to take when I sat upon the Select
Committee on Vaccination in 1871. At that time I put abso- lute
faith in the tradition of the excellence of vaccination, as do now, I
fear, equally without study of the question, the great majority
of English men and women. But I was not the less impressed with
the wrong of compulsion, in regard both to its injustice and
impolicy, and I proposed a clause which should exempt from the
necessity of vacci- nating their children all who should sign a
declaration that they objected on principle to vaccination; such
declaration to be made valid by a stamp for a small amount, not by
way of punishment, but as a security that vaccination should not
be neglected on no better grounds than ignorance or apathy.
Holding to that opinion, I have
1882. ANTI-VACCINATION. 785
naturally
and gradually been led to study the statistics of the ques- tion,
and have thus been brought to the conclusion, much to my
own surprise, that the whole theory is absolutely overthrown by
the statis- tics accumulated since its introduction.
It
is clear that the only ground upon which the intervention of the
State can be justified is that of protection to society, just as
no- body is permitted to create in his own house a nuisance
dangerous to the health of his neighbours. But this is not a
principle that can be applied to vaccination as a protection from
small-pox, because it is obvious that the sounder the theory upon
which Government inter- vention is called for, i.e. the
certainty of the protection afforded by vaccination against
small-pox, the more evident is it that the danger involved in
neglect is not a danger to society, but only to those
who deliberately prefer the alleged risk of infection to what they
consider the evils of vaccination. To speak of the unvaccinated
residuum as forming centres of infection to a protected population
is simply ridi- culous. It would be, moreover, extremely
impolitic. There is no surer way of exciting opposition than by
legal enforcement in a matter where every one feels that he has a
right to decide for himself. As Lord Redesdale said in the House
of Lords in 1814, 'If vaccina- tion deserved to be established, it
would establish itself by its own merits, and all attempts to
force it on the people would only tend to create opposition to the
practice.'
The
compulsory law, moreover, acts as a piece of class legislation in
its worst form. It is the comparatively poor who fall under
its persecution. No government would dare to propose absolute
com- pulsory vaccination. All that is done is to fine those who
refuse to submit. This has made thousands who abhor the practice
submit, while in very many cases it.has involved braver men and
women in absolute ruin to their homes; while the fine, even were
it levied on the wealthy, would be a matter of the smallest
consideration to them. But practically, as every one will
understand, even this slight incon- venience does not attach to
the wealthier classes of the community. Doctors do not betray, and
guardians do not prosecute, persons whose position in society
renders their heresy in regard to vaccination an excusable
eccentricity. Did the Holy Inquisition ever invent a more infernal
torture than that inflicted upon the father or mother who, having
seen their elder children sacrificed in health or life on the altar
of vaccination, are driven to the alternative of seeing their younger
children subjected to the same risk or to their own utter pecuniary
ruin ? For, be it remembered, there have been cases in which
persons have been subjected to repeated prosecutions, to the number
of twenty, thirty, and even forty times.
But
far beyond and above even all these considerations stands in ray
mind this: that from the moment when it was recognised, as it now
is, that any taint in the blood of a person from whom the lymph Vol.
XI.—No. 63. 3 I
786 THE
NINETEENTH CENTURY. May
is
taken is communicable to the person into whose system the dis- eased
matter is conveyed, from that moment compulsion became an execrable
tyranny. On this part of the matter I shall have more to say
presently. It is, surely, significant enough that Dr. Carpenter, in
his defence of vaccination, passes over without observation this most
grave and terrible portion of the subject.
I
published last year a letter to Dr. Carpenter in answer to one by
him in the Spectator, which I have good reason to believe has
not been without effect upon many persons under whose notice it
has come.1 I remember being much struck by an
observation reported to me of some one who had taken the trouble
to read the pamphlet. 'But are Mr. Taylor's figures correct ?
Because, if so, we have all been in a dream for three-quarters of
a century.' The Story of a Great Delu- sion2 forms
a curious study—an examination as to the manner in which a
baseless superstition established itself, with some difficulty, it is
true, and from the moment of its establishment grew and flourished
in public estimation more and more, until any one who should
venture to ex- press a doubt of its absolute truth became the mark
for contempt and ridicule, while year by year was added up the
unmistakable evi- dence of its failure by the invincible logic of
facts and figures. Such an inquiry, I say, affords more
satisfactory provend for the cynic than the philanthropist.
It
is worth, perhaps, a little space to look at vaccination in
this view. The strength of the opinion in favour of vaccination
lies (1) in the universal tradition of its success, and (2) in the
belief that the almost universal medical opinion of the world
testifies to this success. Now the history of vaccination is in
fact one of continuous failure rather than success. By this I mean
that there are abundant and continuous evidences of failure ; i.e.
that numbers of persons who had been vaccinated died of
small-pox. This proves, indeed, that Jenner's promise of perfect
immunity was altogether falsified. It does not, of course,
prove the fallacy of the present fashionable theory that
vaccination, though not a perfect, is a certain, or rather
un- certain, safeguard ; and those who believe in its virtues as
almost a sacred creed have it, of course, open to them to say that
but for vaccination many more would have died. Still, I think, to
candid minds the chain of continuous evidence will not be without
its effect.
Mr.
Birch, surgeon of St. Thomas's Hospital, says in 1804, ' Every
post brings me accounts of the failures of vaccination.' He adds
that Jenner, to avoid the perplexing appeals that were made to him
daily and the messages that were perpetually sent requiring him to
visit untoward cases (that is, of small-pox patients who had been
1 Current
Fallacies about Vaccination. E. W. Allen, 4, Ave Maria Lane,
E.C.
2 The
title of a work now in the press, by a gentleman who has deeply
studied the subject of vaccination.
1882. ANTI-VACCINATION. 787
vaccinated),
retired from London. In 1807 Lord Henry Petty stated in the House
of Commons, ' It appeared by the Report of the Royal College of
Physicians that the deaths by the small-pox had increased since
the discovery of vaccine inoculation.' And again, in 1809, the same
noble Lord observed that' unless he (Dr. Jenner) was
completely blinded by conceit, he must have recognised that the
general faith in vaccination exhibited in 1801 had been much
shaken by the ex- perience of the succeeding seven years.' 1807
seems to have been a bad year for vaccination; Jenner's biographer
says,' The eruptions which attended many of the early cases of
vaccination in London were unfortunately propagated in different
parts of the country.' In 1808 I find Sir Francis Burdett
protesting against any help being given to what 'appeared to be a
failing experiment.' I have an in- teresting work before me, dated
1809 and written by Thomas Brown, surgeon, Musselburgh, upon the
subject of vaccination. In his dedi- cation to Alexander Monro,
M.D., Professor of Anatomy and Surgery in the University of
Edinburgh, F.C.P. and F.R.S., he writes, ' It is with extreme
regret that, after nearly nine years' experience in the practice
of vaccination, I am under the painful necessity of confessing I
have almost arrived at that point which your superior information in
the laws of the animal economy, your acuteness of perception,
and your accurate observation enabled you to attain at the
commence- ment of the practice.' In the body of the work he
explains what this view is in the following naive confession
: ' I am now perfectly satis- fied, from my mind being under the
influence of prejudice and blind to the expression of the fairest
evidence, that the last time the small- pox was prevalent I
rejected and explained away many cases which were entitled to the
most serious attention, and showed myself as violent and
unreasonable a partisan as any of my brethren in pro- pagating
a practice which I have now but little doubt we must ere long
surrender at discretion.' Nor was his experience a slight one, for
he says, ' I have no hesitation in confessing that I became an early
convert and advocate for the new practice, and it is now eight years
and a half since I have uniformly advised and practised vaccination;
in which period I may safely say I have vaccinated up- wards of
twelve hundred.'
Baron
(Jenner's biographer) says, 'In 1818 there were numerous complaints
of the bad quality of the lymph and the prevalence of small-pox
after vaccination.'
In
the Monthly Gazette of Health (1820), edited by Dr. Reece and
other eminent medical men, is an acknowledgment (p. 439) that '
cases of small-pox after cow-pox are become so common as no longer to
excite any interest.' Finally, coming down to a later period, I
find Mr. Ernest Hart, in his Report to the Parliamentary Bills
Committee of the British Medical Association on Vaccination
Penalties, saying, ' So fatal and prevalent was small-pox in the
early part of the present
3
I 2
788 THE
NINETEENTH CENTURY. May
reign
that a Committee had been appointed in 1838 to inquire into the
present state of vaccination in England;' while in 1853 the Lancet
(May 21) observes, ' In the public mind extensively, and to a
more limited extent in the profession itself, doubts are known to
exist as to the efficacy and eligibility of vaccination.'
This
kind of testimony might be quoted ad infinitum. I do not
offer it, of course, as conclusive testimony, but it may serve
to open the minds of candid inquirers who have hitherto placed
implicit faith in the tradition of the success of vaccination
historically con- sidered.
Let
us now see how far these individual witnesses to the failure of
vaccination are confirmed by the statistics since 1837, when
the distinctive registration of deaths came into operation in
England and Wales. It would appear that at that time vaccination
was not growing in public favour, and about the year 1852 it was
resolved by certain medical experts and scientists to make a
vigorous attempt to obtain that which they had so long desired,
viz. an Act for com- pulsory vaccination. A statement was
addressed by Dr. Seaton to the Epidemiological Society and ordered
to be printed by the House of Commons, May 3, 1853, stating (as
was quite true) the extent to which vaccination was then
neglected, and asserting what was not true, viz. the great
increase of small-pox, and pleading for legislative enforce- ment
of vaccination. The Act was easily passed; there was little
dis- cussion or interest on the subject; very likely not above a
hundred persons really studied the effect of such a measure; and
in this negligent sort of manner we became saddled with a law
which has, in my opinion, been productive of a vast amount of
individual suffering as well as of great injury to the public
health. And with what practical result ? Let the following
figures show :—
London Small-pox Deaths.
1851-60 7,150
1861-70 8,347
1871-80 15,543
Or,
to put it in another form, take the following extract from a paper
read before the Manchester Literary and Philosophical
Society (Proceedings, vol. xvi. No. 9) by Joseph Baxendell,
F.R.A.S.:—
As
the best test of the value of vaccination, I have discussed the
small-pox statistics of London—the best vaccinated city in
the kingdom—and compared the results for the five years
1840-53, before vaccination was made compulsory, with those for
the five years 1869-73, when compulsory vaccination had been
twenty years in operation. In the former five years, when
vaccination was voluntary, and the number of vaccinated persons
probably did not amount to 10 per cent. of the total population,
the death rate from small-pox in London was .292; but in the
latter five years, when vaccination had been strictly carried out for
twenty years, and the number of vaccinated persons was 95 per
cent. of the population, the rate was .679 (of the total
mortality), thus showing the extraordinary increase of 132.5 per
cent.
1882. ANTI-VACCINATION. 789
Or
take the deaths in England and Wales:—
Deaths
from small-pox in the first ten years after the enforce- ment of
vaccination—1854-63 33,515
In
the second ten years—1864-73 70,458
But
these figures pass like the idle wind, producing no effect whatever
upon the mind of the enthusiastic advocate of vaccination ; and
this for the obvious reason that he bases his proof of the
efficacy of his system upon the bare assertion of his foregone
conclusion. Under this system all facts are equally useful to
them. If small- pox is not prevalent, what a glorious illustration
of the protection afforded by vaccination ! While if an epidemic
is upon us, carrying off its thousands, they equally congratulate
us upon having been saved from a still greater mortality by the
universal application of their (ex hypothesi) all but
perfect prophylactic !
Thus
it is taken as the strongest evidence in their favour, that in the
first years of the practice of vaccination there was a great decrease
in small-pox mortality, although at that time so few per- sons
were vaccinated—probably not 2 per cent.—that no
perceptible effect could have been produced, and also while other
conditions were in action sufficient to account for the diminution
in the mor- tality without reference to vaccination. Dr. Farr
says, ' Small-pox attained its maximum after inoculation was
introduced : this disease began to grow less fatal before
vaccination was discovered ; indicating, together with the
diminution in fever, the general improvement in health then taking
place.'
Now
compare this credulity as regards the effect produced by vaccination
in the years 1800-1810 with their incredulity as to its failure,
when by compulsion they have raised the ratio of vaccination from,
say, 50 per cent. in 1850 to 90 or 95 per cent. at the present time,
or, according to Dr. Carpenter (in London), to 99-2/3 per cent. (300
to 1); and this contemporaneously with the tremendous out- break
of 1871-2, in regard to which Dr. Carpenter has undertaken the not
very easy task of explaining the figures without
damaging vaccination.
In
further illustration of this strangely illogical and
unscientific state of mind, which is enabled to turn all facts,
however inconsistent with the protective powers of vaccination,
into arguments in its favour, Dr. Carpenter attributes
unhesitatingly to vaccination ' the almost complete extinction
within the last two years of small-pox in the nineteen great towns
whose aggregate population (about 3-3/4 millions) equals that of
the metropolis.' What sort of reasoning is this ?
In
London, where the unvaccinated are declared to be only one in 300,
there has been in these very two years a serious epidemic. Therefore
vaccination is a protection. In the nineteen other large
790 THE
NINETEENTH CENTURY. May
towns,
where the amount of vaccination is certainly much less than this
proportion, there has been 'almost complete exemption'
from small-pox; and again, how excellent a protection is
vaccination ! All roads lead Dr. Carpenter to the same happy
conclusion.
Again,
when Dr. Carpenter is reminded that in Leicester (one of the
nineteen towns), where vaccination has been greatly neglected, the
exemption from small-pox has been as complete as in the
other (thoroughly vaccinated) towns, while in smaller places, such
as Keighley, Dewsbury, and other places, where, as Dr.
Carpenter remarks, ' the anti-vaccination feeling has been for
some years so strong that a considerable percentage of the present
juvenile popula- tion (perhaps even amounting in some places to
one-third) is now unvaccinated,' a like exemption from small-pox
has prevailed, he can only treat with lofty scorn the folly that
can see in such facts any cause for doubt as to the efficacy of
vaccination. Where the un- vaccinated do not die, Dr.
Carpenter's confidence in his theory seems but the more confirmed:
and when, as in 1871, thousands of vaccinated persons died of
small-pox in London, Dr. Carpenter is driven to the conclusion
that the protective power of vaccination ' has never been so
conspicuously manifested,' and that the lesson taught by
that experience is the necessity for the ' more thorough and
satisfactory enforcement of the compulsory clauses of the
Vaccination Acts.'
Surely
nothing like this reasoning has been heard since the days of Dr.
Sangrado, who, when Gil Blas represented that all his patients died,
' as if they took a pleasure in dying merely to bring our
practice into discredit,' replied, ' Why, truly, child, if I was
not so sure as I am of the principles on which I proceed, I should
think my remedies were pernicious in almost all the cases that
come under my care;' and, further, when Gil Blas suggested a
change of method, the excel- lent Doctor observed, ' I would
willingly, but I have published a book in which I have extolled
the use of'—Vaccination ?
We
are further informed that Gil Blas at once recognised the force of
this answer, and rejoined, ' Certainly ; you must not give your
enemies such a triumph over you; perish rather the nobility, clergy,
and people, and let us continue in our old path.'
The
loose habit of Dr. Carpenter's mind is vividly illustrated in his
treatment of Scotland. He writes :—
The
great and continued fatality of small-pox in its principal towns
during the four years 1871-4 may be fairly attributed in part to
the very unsanitary condi- tion of large parts of them, and in
part to the existence of a much, larger propor- tion of the
unvaccinated residuum than survived in England, the
compulsory clauses which took effect in England in 1854 not having
been introduced into Scotland until 1865.
Here
we have the prevalence of small-pox in 1871-4 attributed to two
causes—first, to the unsanitary condition of large parts of
the Scotch towns; and secondly, to the existence of an
unvaccinated
1882. ANTI-VACCINATION. 791
residuum.
The first cause is a permanent factor of zymotic disease, sometimes
yielding small-pox and sometimes other forms of fever, but the
second cause, the unvaccinated residuum, is a figment of
Dr. Carpenter's imagination. Compulsion as applied to vaccination
was a superfluity in Scotland, the ' long-headed people,' as Dr.
Cameron styles them, having, in common with the Irish, consented
to the practice almost without exception. Thus we read in Dr.
Seaton's Handbook of Vaccination:—
The
Registrar-General for Scotland was able to report to Parliament that
of 221,980 children Lorn in that country between the day the Act
came into opera- tion (January 1, 1864) and December 31, 1865,
there were only 5,382 respecting whom the entries required by the
Vaccination Act had not been made in Ms registers ; a result which
he justly regarded as for all practical purposes complete.
If,
therefore, the vaccination of Scotland was complete in 1865, and,
as the returns prove, was maintained complete, how did an
un- vaccinated residuum come into being in the severe epidemic
of 1871-4 ? Having assumed the defence of vaccination, Dr.
Carpenter appears to consider it his duty to find facts where
facts are not. Small- pox having fallen off in Scotland since
1874, he unhesitatingly ascribes the decline to vaccination ; but
if vaccination is preventive, why was it not equally operative,
when equally existent, prior to 1874 ? He forgets the common
phenomenon that after a severe outbreak of any fever there usually
follows a quiescence of that form of fever, a fever of another
fashion taking its place. ' There have not been,' says
Dr. Carpenter,' more than two small-pox deaths a year, either in
Glasgow or Edinburgh, since 1877, though other fevers have been
rife.' Just so. Other fevers have been rife, having taken the
place of small-pox; and where is the gain ? As Mr. Edwin Chadwick
has taught us, we should fix our attention firmly on the general
zymotic death-rate; and if that be not reduced, of what
consequence is the special form of mortality ?
But
Dr. Carpenter is indeed a bold man to refer to Scotland at all.
Prior to 1871 there had been an absence of epidemic small-pox for
several years, and the aggregate mortality for the six years
1865-70 was but 876. Dr. Lyon Playfair (July 1870) triumphantly
declared in the House that ' there could not be the slightest
doubt that compulsory laws, when properly applied, as in
Scotland and Ireland, were perfectly equal to stamp out
small-pox in a country.'
Ah!
luckless speech and bootless boast.
In
1871 epidemic small-pox reappeared, and in the next four years,
1871-4, the deaths by small-pox amounted to 7,260! Since then
there has been no return of epidemic, and Dr. Carpenter can once
more point blandly to Scotland as a crowning testimony of the
triumphs of vaccination. That vaccination can only subdue small- pox
when absent derogates not a little from its usefulness. It is said
792 THE
NINETEENTH CENTURY. May
that
in certain Indian tribes the medicine men used, on occasion of
an eclipse, to gain a temporary credit by boasting that they had
stamped out the sun, but they naturally lost credit when it was
found that the sun invariably reappeared on the ensuing day.
It
is no easy task to grasp and answer a style of argument such as I
have quoted. It is so flimsy that to cut through it is as hard a task
as Richard found it to sever a scarf of lace. It is, nevertheless, a
great improvement upon the ordinary tactique of the
pro-vaccina- tionist, which is simply to assert the fact which he
is bound to prove. That in this I speak without exaggeration the
following extract from that high medical authority the Lancet
will show. In its issue of June 18, 1881, it says, in relation
to a statement put forth by Dr. Buchanan, Medical Officer of the
Local Government Board :—
These
facts, after full allowance for all errors in the estimates used for
the calculations, afford grounds for the strongest special
pleading in favour of vaccina-tion. We doubt, however, the expediency
of any such special pleading. It is beyond dispute that efficient
infant vaccination followed by efficient re-vaccination
at adolescence practically confer immunity from fatal small-pox.
It is wiser, we think, for the Department having the control
of vaccination simply to take its stand upon this ground, and to
accept the recent small-pox epidemic in London, so far as regards
the deaths of children, as evidence of a failure of the vaccination
system as at present carried out.
The
Lancet is, indeed, wise in its generation. By this
petitio principii it renders the sacred cause of
vaccination absolutely secure from any argument however crushing,
from any facts however overwhelming. Does any vaccinated person
die of small-pox, it only proves that, if an infant, the
vaccination, if an adult, the revaccination, was not ' efficient.'
When Doctor Sangrado's patients died, that excellent prototype of
the vaccination experts of the present day employed the like
irrefutable argument-—the bleeding and hot- water treatment
had stopped short of the point when it would have been '
efficient.'
And
now let us consider for a moment whether the general statistics of
small-pox mortality for the last hundred years afford any testimony
whatever in favour of the efficacy of vaccination.
Prior
to the year 1837, as I have said, there was no dis- criminative
register of the mortality in England and Wales. Prior therefore to
that time our pro-vaccination friends have full scope for
recording such enormous small-pox mortalities in the
ante- vaccination times as tradition may have handed down, or
the requirements of their theory render desirable. Thus Dr.
Carpenter, with, I am sure, the most perfect good faith, killed
off by vaccination in Iceland more souls than there were to die ;
and in regard to the metropolitan area (to which I am about to
refer, because registra- tion records were kept in the last
century and were known as the bills of mortality) Dr. Carpenter
made in his letter to the Spectator the following
astounding statement:—
1882. ANTI-VACCINATION. 793
None
but those who have studied the medical history of the last century
have the least idea of the ravages then committed by small-pox.
The 'esteemed con- tributor ' to the Modern Review obviously
considers the death of 44,000 persons from small-pox in England
during the three years 1870-2 (at the rate of 14,666 per annum),
'in spite of compulsory vaccination,' a conclusive disproof of
its efficacy. But he is clearly ignorant of the fact that a
hundred years ago the small-pox mortality of London alone (with
its then population of under a million) was often greater
in six months' epidemic than that of the twenty millions of
Eng- land and Wales is now in any whole year.
Probably
so astounding a misstatement, on a simple question of figures, was
never before put forth by a man of scientific reputation and of
the highest personal character ; and I can only account for it in
this case by the inordinate appetite shown by the advocates
of vaccination for statistics however erroneous, for arguments
however illogical, and for canards however incredible,
which seem to tell in favour of their pet fanaticism. It is enough
to say in evidence of this, that the highest mortality in any one
year in London in the last century was 3,992, whereas the deaths
in London in 1871 were 7,912, and the deaths in England and Wales
in the epidemic 1870-2 were 44,840.
The
average annual small-pox mortality within the bills of mortality
during the last century is estimated to have been between two and
three thousand per million living, while in these days,
when everybody is protected by vaccination, the most prudent
amongst us, let us hope, with five wounds in each arm, and the
operation repeated every third year, and with almost boundless
improvements in sanitary and hygienic regulations, what do we find
?
In
1871 the deaths from small-pox were, per million living:—
Newcastle
|
.
5,351
|
Liverpool
|
.
3,900
|
Durham.
|
.
4,773
|
Wolverhampton
|
.
4,140
|
Sunderland
|
.
8,283
|
Leicester
|
.
3,150
|
London
.
|
.
2,430
|
Portsmouth
|
.
4,390
|
Norwich
|
.
3,040
|
|
|
Or,
looking abroad to places in most of which vaccination has been
carried to the highest extent, the result is still less reas- suring
:—-
Berlin
.
|
.
6,310
|
Paris
.
|
.
5,720
|
Breslau
|
.
3,710
|
Prague
|
.
3,980
|
Buda-Pesth
.
|
.
3,280
|
Rome
.
|
.
3,090
|
Cologne
|
.
3,360
|
Rotterdam
.
|
.
14,280
|
Hague..
|
.
14,100
|
Trieste
|
.
6,980
|
Hamburg
|
.
15,440
|
Vienna
|
.
5,170
|
Liege
.
|
.
3,410
|
|
|
I
have not unfrequently been told by friends interested in
the question, 'We are puzzled by the variety of the statistics
presented to us. Dr. Carpenter gives us certain figures, and they
have a plau- sible and reasonable air, and then you give us a
number of statistics
794 THE
NINETEENTH CENTURY. May
which
appear overwhelming on the other side ; and not having studied the
matter for ourselves, we find it difficult to make the two agree. The
next time you write, do not only give us your own statistics, but
take those given by Dr. Carpenter, and show their fallacy
or unfairness.' There is much sense in this, and let us now see if
we can detect the mode in which Dr. Carpenter, while doubtless
quoting correctly his figures, yet so selects or adapts them as to
seem for a moment to throw some doubt upon the tremendous results
indi- cated by my figures—not mine, by the way, for they are
official, and, as far as I know, neither selected nor adapted.
Here
is a table (which, unlike Dr. Carpenter's, includes the
excep- tional) exhibiting at a glance the mean annual death-rate
from small-pox per million living in England and Wales from 1838
to 1879:—
Five years—1838-42 571
1843-46
No returns published
Three
years—1847-49 303
Five
years—1850-54 279
Five
years—1855-59 199
Five
years—1860-64 190
Five
years—1865-69 147
Five
years—1870-74 433
Five
years—1875-79. . . . . .
. . 344
Dr.
Carpenter's figures are placed in different form, but I think he
would fully admit the correctness of the above figures. It is not in
dispute, therefore, between us that there has been for about
a century a continuous decline in small-pox mortality; but while
he attributes this wholly to the results of vaccination, I
maintain, on the contrary, that there is no evidence whatever that
vaccination has had anything to do with it. The decline commenced
before vaccination was practised, and, as will be seen by the
above figures, it bears no cha- racter of relation to the gradual
increase in the practice of vaccina- tion, which, commencing about
1800, with perhaps 1 per cent., has continued to the present time,
when it is said to have reached 90 or 95 per cent. And the broad
fact remains that having reached a com- pleteness of vaccination
which Jenner evidently would have con- sidered sufficient to stamp
out the disease, we have to encounter, in the eightieth year of
the triumph of vaccination, an epidemic acknowledged by Dr.
Carpenter to be one characterised by 'peculiar virulence ' and '
widespread mortality.'
Considering
the enormous advances that the last century has seen in our
sanitary arrangements, there seems nothing more natural than to
attribute to this improvement the diminution of the
small-pox mortality, to which indeed it seems fully adequate.
Probably the hygienic conditions of the worst slums of London now
are no worse than were those of all London when in the last
century 4,000 persons
1882. ANTI-VACCINATION. 795
perished
in one year. But to this Dr. Carpenter opposes the observa- tion
that 'those who attribute the whole of this beneficial change
to sanitation have to account for the fact that no
corresponding decrease has taken place in the mortality
from other diseases of the same class.' Now Dr. Carpenter has
alluded to Dr. Farr as an unrivalled authority on this subject,
and this is what Dr. Farr says on the matter: ' Small-pox attained
its maximum after inoculation was introduced ; this disease began
to grow less fatal before vaccina- tion was discovered,
indicating, together with the diminution in fever, the general
improvement of health then taking place.' And again, 'Fever has
proportionally declined since 1771. Fever has declined in nearly
the same ratio as small-pox.' It is clear that Dr. Carpenter has
little faith in sanitation as affecting small-pox. He says, ' To
maintain that this disease is to be extinguished by any sanitation
that is practically possible shows an enthusiastic credulity,' &c.
&c. &c. This is certainly opposed to the views of many
distin- guished men. Mr. Edwin Chadwick, C.B., in his opening
address to the Health Congress lately held at Brighton, said
that
cases of small-pox, of typhus, and of others of the ordinary
epidemics occur in the greatest proportion, on common conditions
of foul air, from stagnant putrefactions, from bad house drainage,
from sewers of deposit, from excrement- sodden sites, from filthy
street surfaces, from impure water, and from overcrowding in foul
houses; that the entire removal of such conditions by complete
sanitation and by improved dwellings is the effectual preventive
of diseases of those species, and of ordinary as well as of
extraordinary visitations, &c.
Dr.
Carpenter, on the other hand, apparently believes that
'the healthiest subjects, living under the most favourable
conditions,' are equally liable with others less favourably
conditioned to be infected with small-pox. In his letter to the
Spectator he asserts that 'every unvaccinated person
retains his full congenital liability not merely to take the
disease himself and to have it in its severest form, but to become
the focus of infection to others.' A focus of infection to
the protected! Dr. Carpenter does not explain what he means by '
full liability,' but of course the implication is that few persons
would escape in an unvaccinated community in a period of epidemic;
and I observed lately in one of our leading medical journals a
statement showing that there are really persons to endorse so
extravagant an opinion—how extravagant a single illustration
will prove. The state- ment to which I refer was (I really think
it must have been written by Dr. Carpenter himself) that' about 90
per cent, of persons in an unvaccinated community exposed to
small-pox will catch it. From a third to a half would die, and the
rest would be marked for life.'3 Now, as I have already
said, the heaviest mortality from small-pox registered during last
century in unprotected London in any one year was under 4,000. All
concurrent testimony places the ratio of deaths to cases at a
little under 20 per cent. We have,
3
Lancet, February 11, 1882.
796
THE
NINETEENTH CENTURY.
May
therefore,
about 20,000 cases and no more ; that is to say, that the ' full
congenital liability' resulted—assuming the population to
have been three-quarters of a million—in the fact that
20,000 persons did take small-pox and 730,000 people did not. The
panic which it would appear the object of the advocates of
vaccination to produce by such statements as the foregoing might
be further alleviated by the well-known fact that the years
distinguished by large small-pox mortality are by no means those
of the largest general mortality. Thus, take the forty
years 1841-80, and we find the following curious result:—
London
|
Small-pox
deaths
|
General
death rate per thousand
|
1841 Three
lowest years. . . 1851
|
1,053
|
24-2
|
1855
|
1,062
|
23-4
|
|
1,039
|
24-3
|
Average
|
1,051
|
23-9
|
l863
Three
highest years . . 1871
|
1,990
|
24-5
|
1877
|
7,912 2,551
|
24-6 21-9
|
|
------------------
|
---------------
|
Average
|
4,153
|
23-6
|
Or,
to give another not less striking illustration, the deaths
by small-pox in London in 1796 (the highest of that decade)
were 3,548, and the whole number of deaths was 19,288. In 1792
the small-pox deaths were 1,568, and the total mortality 20,213.
Dr.
Carpenter endeavours to increase alarm by quoting a number of
illustrious personages who were struck down by small-pox in the last
century as proving that no favourable conditions of life can
pro- tect from small-pox, but he should remember that we have had
recent evidence that palaces may be very dangerous residences,
and that it is probable the palaces of last century were not, to
say the least of it, more sanitary than those of the present.
I
have already quoted statistics showing the diminution of small-pox
mortality during the present century, but there is this peculiarity
about them well worth noting, viz. that the average de- cline
arises from the small mortality in the non-epidemic years—of course
by far the larger number—while as regards the periods
of epidemic each one has shown an increase on the previous one :
thus, vaccination was made compulsory in 1853; an additional Act
was passed in 1867, and a still more stringent one in 1871 ;
since 1853 we have had three epidemics :—
Epidemic
..................................... Deaths from
small-pox in
England and Wales
1857-8-9
.......................................... .
14,244
1863-4-5
................................................. . 20,059
1870-1-2
...............................................................................
. 44,840
1882. ANTI-VACCINATION. 797
I
am afraid Dr. Carpenter will not be disposed to accept the
con- clusions to which I think these facts naturally lead, viz.
that the diminution of small-pox in non-epidemic periods marks the
natural improvement in general health arising from improved
sanitary conditions, while the enhanced fatality of the epidemic
periods marks the evil accomplished by a general rush to the
dangerous quackery of re-vaccination. Further on I shall offer
additional evidence in support of this hypothesis.
Naturally
dissatisfied the advocates of vaccination must be with the broad
facts to which I have adverted, viz. that after eighty years of
trial, and when the system has arrived at what must be recognised
as com- plete development, small-pox is no nearer being stamped
out than before Jenner's name was heard of, while the proportion
of mortality to cases remains singularly identical, as witness the
following tables:—
Before
Vaccination
|
Date
|
Authority
|
Cases
|
Vaccinated
|
Deaths
|
Deaths per
cent.
|
|
1723 1746-63 1763 1779
|
Dr.
Jurin quoted by Dr.
Duvillard London
Small-pox Hos-
pital Lambert
quoted by Duvillard Rees' Cyclopaedia
|
18,066 6,456
72 400
|
None
'' ''
|
2,986
1,634
15
72
|
16-53
25-30
20-8 18-0
|
|
|
|
24,094
|
—
|
4,707
|
18-83
|
After
40 to 80 years of Vaccination
|
1836-51
1870-72 1876
1871-77
1876-80 1876-80
|
Mr.
Marson's Hospital Report. Metropolitan Hospitals
Homerton
Hospital (Dr. Gayton) Dublin Hospital
(Or. Grimshaw) . Metropolitan (Jebb)
|
5,652 14,808 1,470
5,479
2,404 15,171
|
3,094 11,174
4,236
1,056 11,412
|
1,129 2,764 338
1,065
523 2,677
|
19-97 18-66 23-0
19-43
21-7 17-6
|
|
|
|
44,984
|
31,872
|
8,496
|
18-8
|
Under
these circumstances it is not surprising that within the last few
years an attempt should have been made to ignore the general
statistics of the question, and to attempt to show a
protective influence in vaccination by pretending to discriminate
the victims of small-pox as between the vaccinated and the
unvaccinated. This latest dodge (I can really find no other name
for it) of the vaccina- tion specialists is warmly taken up by Dr.
Carpenter, and in fact forms one of the chief arguments in his
article. Apparently Dr. Carpenter has brought himself to believe
that ' while the general death-rate of the vaccinated is only 7.8
per cent. that of the unvacci- nated is 44.6 per cent., or nearly
six times as great.' And again,
798 THE
NINETEENTH CENTURY. May
'
While the death-rate of vaccinated children was only 6.5 per
cent., that of the unvaccinated reached the terrible figure of
47.8 per cent., or more than seven times as great.'
If
we take the most general survey of the statistics for
small-pox mortality, the absolute incredibility of this statement
must strike every one but those impervious to reason through the
force of a fore- gone conclusion. The recognised average mortality
in small-pox cases is about 18 per cent. This is accepted on the
best authorities we have, as being true of ' unprotected' England
in the last century, and the same sort of average is maintained in
the present century. I have a long list of hospital reports before
me, both at home and abroad, and although there are naturally
considerable variations, the general average mortality is
maintained with quite a singular exacti- tude. Medical men will
not, I think, deny this statement, although they certainly do not
press it before the public, and the result of my observation upon
the matter is that the public are quite astonished when the fact
is brought before them. It may, however, be well that I should add
distinct medical testimony to the fact.
I
find the following in Dr. Seaton's Handbook of Vaccination, 1868,
p. 191:—
Dr.
Jurin writing early in the last century laid it down as the result of
his investigations that of persons of all ages taken ill of
natural small-pox, there will die of that distemper one in five or
six. . . . From returns made to the Epide- miological Society in
1852, by 156 medical practitioners in various parts of Eng- land
who had kept numerical records of their small-pox experience, it
appeared that the proportion of deaths to cases which they had met
with in the natural form of the disease was 19.7 per cent.; or as
nearly as possible one in five.
Now
what is it we are asked to believe, as the result of this pre- tended
subdivision of small-pox mortality at the present time into the
vaccinated and unvaccinated ? Why, that the mortality in the last
century in ' unprotected' London was 18 per cent., whereas now, in
what you consider as 'unprotected' England—that is to say,
the unvaccinated portion of it—the mortality is 44 per
cent., or almost treble! Nay, I have seen statements by even more
courageous dis- putants, that the mortality of the 'unprotected'
now amounts to 60 or even 80 per cent.! And it must be remembered,
in comparing the present with the last century, that our general
sanitary and hygienic conditions have been immensely improved, and
that the hideous medical maltreatment of small-pox in the last
century has been altogether relinquished for a more natural
system.
But
when we descend to the practical details of this
pretended subdivision of small-pox mortality, we have to deal with
something- worse than want of logic, and to which I hardly know
how to give a milder name than positive bad faith. To
decide whether persons who have died of small-pox have or have not
been vaccinated, with any degree of scientific accuracy, is an
impossibility, as is acknow-
1882. ANTI-VACCINATION. 799
ledged
and recognised by those who have had sufficient means of observation,
and who have no foregone conclusion to uphold. The Lancet long
ago deprecated this piece of quackery. The permanence of the
vaccine marks is known to be quite uncertain. As an illustra- tion
I may quote an observation of the Earl of Morley in a debate in the
House of Lords in June last, when it was proposed to
prevent fraudulent re-enlistment in the army by an extension of
the practice of vaccination. He said, ' But would the practice be
efficacious ? He feared not. ... It appeared that out of 100
recruits who were vaccinated, only 38 were marked.' And this
failure, be it remem- bered, was within the probably short period
between vaccination and re-enlistment.
Again,
it is notorious that in the case of persons dying of con- fluent
small-pox it is quite impossible to detect the vaccination marks.
And, moreover, the whole statement is tainted with suspicion from
the commencement. Admission has in some cases been made by medical
men themselves that their fear of damaging the cause of vaccination
has been too strong for the accuracy of their returns. It is, in
fact, quite in harmony with those who avow a foregone belief such
as requires no proof and declines all argument, that they should
take for granted that a child who dies of small-pox has not been
vaccinated, even when the parent vouches for the fact, and, as a
matter of fact, numerous instances have been found on critical
inquiry, in which the same child has been registered as '
successfully vaccinated,' and in the death register as died of
small- pox ' unvaccinated.' The following medical notes speak
volumes as to the mode in, which this division into vaccinated and
unvaccinated is carried into practice. In the case of the
Birkenhead epidemic I cannot for a moment doubt that an enormous
proportion of the 292 registered as ' unvaccinated' and '
unknown,' had duly undergone the operation in infancy as by law
enforced:—
Notes
on the Small-pox Epidemic at Birkenhead, 1877 (p. 9). By
Fras. Vacher, M.D.
Vaccinated Unvaccinated Unknown
223 72 220
Died
12 53 28
As
regards the patients admitted to the fever hospital or treated at
home, those entered as vaccinated displayed undoubted cicatrices,
as attested by competent medical witnesses, and those entered as
not vaccinated were admitted unvaccinated, or without the
faintest mark. The mere assertions of patients (!) or their
friends that they were vaccinated counted for nothing, as about 80
per cent, of the patients entered on the third column of the
table were reported as having been vaccinated in infancy.
Dr.
Russell's Glasgow Report, 1871-2.
P.
25. Sometimes persons were said to lie vaccinated, but no marts could
be seen, very frequently because of the abundance of the eruption.
In some cases of those which recovered, an inspection before
dismission discovered vaccine marks sometimes ' very good.'
800 THE
NINETEENTH CENTURY. May
But
supposing, just for argument sake, the correctness of Dr. Carpenter's
figures, they would still afford no proof that the un- vaccinated
died because they were unvaccinated, for there is another specialty
which applies to the unvaccinated residuum, and that is, that
while the vaccinated include an enormous proportion of the well-to-do
classes of the community, the unvaccinated consist for the most
part, first, of those whom, being in feeble health, the doctors
dare not vaccinate, and secondly, of that portion of the
population living in the slums of London, and unreachable by
vaccination officers, and under each condition the ' unvaccinated
residuum' is marked out to fall under any existing epidemic in
larger proportions than the more favoured vaccinated class.
I
must just notice in passing another similar attempt to show that
there is some connection between vaccination and small-pox,
by declaring that the effect produced by the former on the latter
is precisely regulated by the number of marks upon the arm.
Jenner declared that one mark was sufficient, but no matter for
that, and I fancy that physiologists have usually held that
blood-poisoning could be produced by a single inoculation as well
as by a dozen. But this, however, is no question for me to
discuss, and fortunately it is quite unnecessary, seeing that, as
it happens, official statistics are sufficient to overthrow the
allegation.
I
find in the ' Metropolitan District Asylums Report' the follow- ing
table of deaths under five years old from small-pox. The per- centage
of deaths is (of those reported as having any vaccination marks at
all) :—
One
mark 22 per cent.
Two
marks 28 „
Three
„ 18 „
Four
„ 0 „
Five
„ . 16 „
Take,
again, another table, age thirty to forty :—
One
mark 16 per cent.
Two
marks 20 „
Three
„ 21 „
Four
„ . . . ...... 23 „
Five
,, 8 „
Take,
again, the number of cases admitted in various hospitals. The
Deptford Hospital Report for 1879 gives the following:—
One
mark 317
Two
marks 384
Three
„ 447
Homerton
Reports, 1871-7, give :
One
mark 1,042
Two
marks 1,259
Three
or more 1,261
1882. ANTI-VACCINATION. 801
Fulham
Hospital Report, 1878, gives :—
One
mark 149
Two
marks 156
Three
and more 202
Metropolitan
Hospital Report, 1870-2, gives :—
One
mark 1,124
Two
marks 1,722
Three
and more 1,6/7
Such
figures as these would really seem to show that the vaccina- tion
authorities boldly make whatever assertions fit in with
their theories, relying upon the probability that the public will
not trouble itself with hospital reports.
Dr.
Carpenter in his article quotes other statistics, furnished by Dr.
Gayton, giving quite different results from the figures
above. Perhaps Dr. Carpenter will say that his figures may be
taken as at least neutralising mine, but this would not be fair,
for the obvious reason that, if his view were correct, it
could not be contradicted— although, of course, the
proportions might differ—-by any correct statistics, while,
if my view be correct, namely, that the number of marks is no
factor in the question, we should expect to find, according to the
doctrine of probabilities, the greater mortality would sometimes be
found on the side of the few marks, and sometimes of the many. I
have neither time nor opportunity to test Dr. Carpenter's new figures
upon the subject, but I frankly confess that, without impugn- ing
anyone's desire to be accurate, I am not able to put fall faith
in the scientific accuracy of Dr. Gayton's returns.4
While
I am putting pen to paper, I receive a report of a speech delivered
within the last few days at Eastbourne, by Mr. W. J. Collins, M.B.,
B.S., B.Sc, &c, containing the following passage; and I stop
to ask myself whether the statistics quoted do not as definitely
settle the question of compulsory vaccination, as I could do were
I permitted to occupy an entire number of this Review.
The
report of the Highgate Small-pox Hospital for 1871 says: 'Of the
950 cases of small-pox, 870, or 91.5 per cent. of the whole cases,
had been vaccinated,' while that for the last year informs us
there were 491 cases and of these only 21 were not vaccinated. In
Bromley last summer there actually occurred an epi- demic of
small-pox in which everybody attacked had been previously
protected. Dr. Nicholson, writing to the Lancet, observes:
' There were 43 cases treated in the Bromley Hospital between
April 25 and June 29. Of confluent small-pox
4
In justification of a moderate amount of scepticism I may say that I
have been favoured with a communication from Mr. M. D. Makuna,
late Medical Superintendent of the Fulham Small-pox Hospital, in
which he informs me that the information supplied to Dr. Carpenter
for his article in this review in respect to the nurses at that
hospital is wholly incorrect. Mr. Makuna adds : ' I must say that as
long as indefinite statements are made simply to bewilder the
public, these questions must remain a public nuisance.'
Vol.
XI.—No. 63. 3 K
802 THE
NINETEENTH CENTURY. May
there
were 16 cases; of discrete, 14; of modified, 13. All the cases had
been vaccinated—3 re-vaccinated.' (F. Nicholson, L.R.C.P.
Lancet, August 27, 1881.)
So
much for the first point, on which, as I have said, the general faith
in vaccination for the most part depends, viz. the tradition of
its historical success. I come now to the second point, viz.
the supposed universal belief of the medical profession in the
efficacy of vaccination. This, I am convinced, is one of the chief
causes of the blind faith in vaccination amongst the middle and
upper classes, who naturally accept the opinion of their medical
advisers upon what they consider a purely medical question. Upon
this point I am warned by the length to which my paper has already
run that I must content myself with asserting what I could prove
on indisputable testimony, viz. that the unanimity of the medical
profession in regard to vacci- nation is very far indeed from
being as complete as is generally supposed. For lack of space I
must likewise omit to recapitulate the overwhelming evidence as to
the other dangers attending vacci- nation, which very strangely
Dr. Carpenter altogether passes by.
Dr.
Carpenter concludes his article by kindly providing me with a
Report to the House, to be drawn up by me as imaginary chairman, of
a supposititious Select Committee, after the unanimous testimony of
the medical witnesses has proved the fallacy of all my views upon the
subject. Dr. Carpenter would certainly not expect that I should so
ostentatiously ' write me down an ass' as to follow his
suggestion, and I only notice it to add the hope that, so far as
compulsion, at least, is concerned, we shall not have the
question referred to a Select Committee. On every sound principle
upon which, at any rate in the long run, English legislation is
based, compulsory vaccination stands condemned, and should suffer
summary execution without further reprieve.
P.
A. Taylor.
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