ANIMAL RESEARCH  T A K E S  LIVES
- Humans and Animals BOTH Suffer

<< previous page | next page >>

contents | Chapter 5 index | index


 

SMALLPOX

 

Although the notion of inoculation against smallpox had been around for over 1000 years, it was Edward Jenner who revived the idea in the late 18th century.  Smallpox inoculation was allowed until a fierce outbreak of the disease occurred in 1838, when the practice was banned under threat of imprisonment.

Smallpox then declined steadily until, in 1867, vaccination was enforced by law, on all children.  Then began the largest epidemic ever in Britain, with a peak of 42,000 deaths per year.

Leicester and Dewsbury rejected the serum and relied on effective measures, hygiene and sanitation.  Consequently these towns had the lowest death rate in the country.

Walter R. Hadwen, a vegetarian doctor became First Prizeman in Physiology, Operative Surgery, Pathology, Forensic Medicine and in 1891 won the Clark Scholarship for "distinguished medical student of the year".  He became famous nationwide when he eradicated an epidemic of smallpox in Gloucester by ruling out all vaccination and introducing strict measures of hygiene and isolation of the infected.  In 1910 he accepted the Presidency of the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection, a position he retained until his death.  Of vivisection Walter Hadwen said:

"To oppose vivisection, when every year seems to establish it more as a state-supported, press-advertised 'boon to humanity', requires courage.  So does every advance that humanity has made.  Those who uphold this practice thoughtlessly, because it is the 'proper thing' to do so, would equally, had they been born earlier, have supported the tortures of the inquisition or negro slavery, and would of course, have agreed with every dogma of medicine, however absurd or revolting, that belonged to the age in which they lived.  We call for pioneers.  Our appeal is to those who have a more alert intelligence, greater courage and daring, and a higher ideal than the rank and file."
(Dr W. Hadwen, April 18 1932.)

 

In the 21 years ended December 1958, only a little more than one-third of the children born in England and Wales were vaccinated for smallpox, yet only two children aged under five years died of smallpox but of the one-third vaccinated, 91 were killed by vaccination.
(Replies of Minister of Health in Parliament and Ministry of Health Reports.)

 

In the Philippines between 1918 and 1919, 112,549 cases of smallpox were notified with 60,855 deaths.  Vaccination programmes had been introduced in 1905 after which deaths from the disease increased alarmingly.  Their records comment that:

"The mortality is hardly explainable."
(Hume, 1963.)

Authorities in the western countries then began making vociferous protests about third-world countries continuing the use of smallpox vaccination, because (a) it was suddenly recognised as an extremely dangerous procedure and (b) because smallpox "has now been conquered".

("The Natural History of Smallpox", New Scientist, November 30 1978.  "Smallpox Eradication", The Lancet, January 12 1980.)

In the same year, 1967, the British Medical Journal linked multiple sclerosis to vaccinations including smallpox as follows:

 

"Opinions on matters held by the public to be 'obvious', long considered natural and necessary, are only so because they are shared widely without question."
(Maria Chiara Giardini.)

 

The Abolitionist of November 1 1932 printed an article on the sequel of smallpox vaccination:

"The patients were middle-aged persons between 50 and 65, the subjects of leukemia or subleukemia, who had been vaccinated or revaccinated against smallpox during their stay in hospital.  The symptoms were both local and general - namely, a violent inflammatory reaction at the vaccination site, considerable enlargement of the lymphatic glands, both in the axilla and elsewhere, and aggravation of the general condition, as shown by anorexia, more or less considerable rise of temperature, progressive emaciation, and changes in the blood picture consisting in the very pronounced anaemia and intense leucocytosis.  Four of the five cases proved fatal, between two and seven weeks after vaccination.  In the only case which survived, which was one of pure Hodgkin's disease, there was a considerable aggravation of the general condition."

Prof. Theodor Lessing, Dr med., Dr Phil., Hannover, in an article in One Thousand Doctors (and many more) Against Vivisection, pages 153-154:

"In Germany 9,972 children contracted smallpox last year as a result of vaccinations, and several hundred died from it."

Refer also to section on Rabies Vaccination.

 

<< previous page | next page >>

contents | Chapter 5 index | index