Compulsory Vaccination

in England:

WITH INCIDENTAL REFERENCES TO FOREIGN STATES

BY
WILLIAM TEBB

LONDON
E. W. ALLEN, 4, AVE MARIA LAMNE, E. C.

1884

"It is a melancholy reflection for human nature, how easily and completely even the most intelligent classes of even the most intelligent people may sometimes be imposed upon. There seems some inherent proneness in mankind to great national delusions. The same men whom we find, as individuals, watchful and wary, not readily trusting professions, nor often misled by appearances, will, as a body, often swallow open-mouthed the most glaring absurdities and contradictions; and the Press, which ought to be the detector.. of such delusions, will sometimes stoop to be their instrument."—LORD MAHON.

 "Life consists in the alternate process of learning and unlearning; but it is often wiser to unlearn than to learn."—BULWER LYTTON.

 "When the law comes into conflict with the consciences of men, it is the law that should be altered, and not conscience that should be forced."—JOHN MORLEY, in Pall Mall Gazelle.

 "In all science, error precedes the truth; and it is better that it should go first than last."—HORACE WALPOLE.

 "Not only crowds, but Sanhedrims, may be infected with the public lunacy."—DRYDEN.

"When I have heard men talk of unalterable laws, I put them down as unalterable fools."—SYDNEY SMITH.

INTRODUCTION
VACCINATION RESULTS .
VACCINATION IN THE WORKHOUSE
VACCINATION IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS
VACCINATION IN THE POST OFFICE
VACCINATION IN THE POLICE FORCE
VACCINATION IN THE ARMY
    VACCINO-SYPHILIS.
VACCINATION IN HER MAJEST'S NAVY
VACCINATION IN PRISONS
VACCINATION IN LIFE ASSURANCE
VACCINATION AMONGST IMIGRANTS
CONCLUSION

INTRODUCTION

It has been said of old, that there is no deeper injustice than that which is committed in the name of law, and it may be added, that with, perhaps, the possible exception of the Fugitive Slave Law of America, there has been no law passed by any English-speaking Legislature, so unreasonable in its theory, and so hard-hearted in its practice, as the existing Vaccination Law of the British Empire.  The evidence adduced at the Public Inquiry at Norwich, in the month of June, 1882, shews that four deaths, and five cases of serious injury to children previously in perfect health, were the rsults of the operation of a qualified vaccinator of 27 years’ experience, who had been twice rewarded by Government for efficient Vaccination. In one of the fatal cases, Mrs. THREADKILL—the mother—testified before the Commissioners that she had previously lost a child by the same Parliamentary rite in 1875. *

*The magisterial interpretation of the, law, however, has scarcely ever allowed such a plea to be a reasonable excuse. When CHARLES SMALLMAN, of Rochester, was summoned before the Kent County Police-court for non-vaccination, he bid the magistrate that his last child died through vaccination. Mr. G. H. KNIGHT, the magistrate’s clerk, replied, "Admitting that to be true, it is no answer to the case in law."—Echo, September 54th, 1882.

Can any greater cruelty be imagined than an avowedly unscientific law, which compels a parent to submit a second child to the dreaded operation, having already had her hearth made desolate by a former submission?

During the past five years, thousands of people in England and Scotland have been interviewed at railway stations, in trains, on omnibuses, and by the way-side, on this subject, and 19 out of every 20 have testified to having personally known of cases of injury and death caused by Vaccination, while, in not a few cases, vaccine fatalities have occurred in the family of the person interviewed, in August, last year, in a railway carriage, near Stockport, Cheshire, five out of ten passengers related in succession experiences of this kind. The Rev. JOHN POSTLETHWAITE, of Ulverston, a clergyman of the Church of England, a well-known philanthropist, and the founder of a convalescent home at Redcar, Yorkshire, told me that, as his work was chiefly with the poor, it was his custom to travel in third-class carriages, in order that he might learn more of the people. He frequently introduced the subject of Vaccination to them, and he assured me that in nearly every case some details concerning its evil and fatal consequences were related to him by his fellow travellers.*

* A Vaccine Disaster Record, comprising particulars of more than 400 fatal Vaccination cases by F. BAKER, Esq., of the Inner Temple, was published in May, 1883.

The following extract is from the letter of a barrister whose experience covers many years, and whose veracity is unimpeachable:--

"September 9th, 1882.
"I have long ceased to take note of the innumerable cases of injury and death by Vaccination related to me. Suffice it to say that, travelling much, I almost invariably continue to introduce the subject to strangers wherever I am; and that to find anyone who does not cite some instance of mischief personally known to the speaker, is a very very RARE exception. A story is sure to be commenced relating to some sufferer, which I usually stop by saying: ‘They are as plentiful as blackberries.’ But the besotted physiological ignorance is most remarkable in reference to re-vaccination sequele. Thus, a Health Minister sends his robust son into the navy; the youth is re-vaccinated in accordance with the rules, and within a year dies suddenly, without any known cause! A clergyman, aged 26, gets re-vaccinated, and, six months after, dies of blood-poisoning, for which no cause can be assigned; whilst deaths, following this folly, even within the first fortnight, are numerous; but some excuse is always found to obfuscate the survivors."

Mr. P. A. TAYLOR, whose untiring opposition to the Vaccination Acts, both in and out of Parliament, has done so much to bring the question within the range of practical politics, and who has given notice of his intention to introduce a Bill during the next Session for the Repeal of the Compulsory Clauses of the Vaccination Acts, told the House of Commons, in April, 1879, that he had "seen dozens and scores of persons who had stated to him that they honestly believed that their children had died from Vaccination. They took perfectly healthy children to be vaccinated, an incision was made in the arm, in a few days a sore appeared on the arm, from thence it spread all over the body, and finally the children died in agony. Be they wrong in their opinion, or be they right, they would be utterly heartless and unfeeling if, holding the opinion that Vaccination is dangerous, they were to suffer their children to undergo the operation." There is an amount of evidence of a similar character to the foregoing, perfectly overwhelming to the candid inquirer, but it is generally treated with contempt by credulous magistrates at the hearing of Vaccination summonses, and habitually suppressed in both lay and medical journals; nay, where in a few cases evidence against Vaccination has been reported, such journals have not been slow to stigmatize the honest avowal as "playing into the hands of anti-vaccinators." (See Lancet, August 21st, 1881.)

Dr. JOHN SCOTT, Physician to the Manchester Southern Hospital for Diseases of Women and Children, and an ardent vaccinator, in a published lecture, entitled Smallpox and Vaccination, says :— "When seeing cases of infants’ diseases, if I ask the question ‘How long has this infant been ill?’ the mother’s answer, as often as not, is, ‘Never been right, sir, since it was vaccinated.’" Dr. Scott continues: There is no getting over the fact that Vaccination is hated amongst the working classes in Lancashire at least.

The cry I always hear is, ‘Now, I wouldn’t have baby’s arm scratched if I could help it.’" At a coroner’s inquest held at Crowndale-road, St. Pancras, May 17th, 1883, on the body of GEORGE ANDREWS, alleged to have been fatally injured by Vaccination, which developed into suppurating sores, Dr. CLAREMONT, the Public Vaccinator for St. Pancras, deposed that he had personally vaccinated over 40,000 children, and that the mothers nearly always protested against Vaccination. The verdict in this case was returned, " Death from inflammation of the brain, following Vaccination properly performed."

Mothers have even been known to commit suicide rather than submit to the law. Such a case occurred in London about a year ago; referring to which the Daily Chronicle for August 26th, 1882, says: ‘MARY CLARKE appears to have lost her senses owing to the dread she had of having her little one vaccinated. . . . Her own youngest child was not in robust health, and therefore when she found that the operation, already much delayed, could be deferred no longer, she tore up the flooring of one of the rooms of her house, and, in the cistern beneath, she managed to drown both herself and her infant."

This dread of Vaccination is not without foundation. Commenting upon the Norwich cases, before mentioned, The Times of September 4th, says: "There can be no doubt that Vaccination has been the channel for the communication of disease of a very grave character." The St. James’s Gazette declares that "what happened at Norwich has been happening all over the country, in a greater or less degree, for years." The Methodist Recorder for November 24th, says: "In the presence of such facts, Compulsory Vaccination cannot be defended." Scarcely a day passes but serious or fatal cases are reported to. the Secretary of the LONDON SOCIETY FOR THE ABOLITION OF COMPULSORY VACCINATION. A short time ago, a correspondent at Nottingham, Mr. SCRIMSHAW, sent the details of over 20 such cases, which he had personally investigated in his own neighbourhood within a few weeks. The most ardent pro-vaccinating authorities admit the risk of the operation, where their own families are concerned, though regarding with a light heart the far more serious danger to the poor, owing to the mode in which Vaccination is performed at the Public Vaccination Stations.  Nor is this dislike of recent origin. The Lancet for the 11th November, 1854, says "So widely extended is the dread that, along with the prophylactic remedy, something else may be inoculated, lest the germ of future diseases may be planted, that few medical practitioners would care to vaccinate their own children from a source, of the purity of which they were not well assured." The hazardous nature of Vaccination may be estimated by the following:--

VACCINATION RESULTS.

MEAN ANNUAL RATE OF MORTALITY IN ENGLAND from SMALL-POX, and from six directly or indirectly inoculable causes, during each Quinquenniad of the 33 years, 1850—80. (P. lxxix., Table 34, of the 43rd Annual Report of the Registrar-General, 1882.) N.B.—Vaccination made compulsory, 1853; more stringently so, I867.

*Small-pox is an epidemical disease, and there has occurred but one great outbreak (1871-2), 18 years subsequent to the introduction of enforced Vaccination, and four years after the futher and more stringent Act.

**Bonchitis, though not, perhaps, directly inoculable, is often observed by intelligent medical authorities to supervene upon, or soon after, Vaccination; and it is obvious that diminished constitutional vitality will render recovery from any disease more precarious; hence the benefit derived by newly.born children from improved sanitation is nearly neutralized by Vaccination. -

***The single epidemic (1871-2) carried off 44,000 only, the general death-rate of the years being somewhat under the average of the period. There was, therefore, no loss thereby, because, had small-pox not been the epidemic, more would have died from other causes; nevertheless, we see that in the vain attempt to prevent this erroneously supposed loss in two years out of thirty, 48,000 lives are now annually sacrificed.

An earlier return—No. 433, dated 1877, entitled "Vaccination, Mortality," *

* When Mr. J. W. PEASE, the member for South Durham, introduced his Bill for the Abolition of Cumulative Penalties for Non-Vaccination, he held up this official document before the President of the Local Government Board, Mr. SCLATER BOOTH, and declared "that the President could not deny that Vaccination slaughters children in a wholesale way."

and No. 392, Session 2, 1880, disclosed similar lethal results; but both these official documents have been cautiously ignored by the medical journals. Their evil portent is, however, well known to the Local Government Board, as will be seen by the following admission from a letter to his constituents at Oldham, by Mr. J. T. HIBBERT, M.P., then Parliamentary Secretary to the Local Government Department, written in June, 1880 :—

"The Return (433) shews an increase of deaths from syphilis of infants under one year from 255, in 1847,—to 1,554, in 1875,—which, in my opinion, is one of the most unsatisfactory features in connection with Vaccination, and one which leads me to support the proposed modification of the Vaccination Law now before the House of Commons."—Lancet, July 17th, 1880.

Concerning this Return, the Glasgow Herald for March 4th, 1878, observes:—

"The document is in the form of a Return issued by the Registrar-General, at the instance of Mr. HOPWOOD, the Member for Stockport, of the number of deaths in England and Wales of children under one year of age, and of persons of all ages, from 15 specified diseases, during the three periods 1847-53, 1854-67, and 1868-75. These periods mark the three epochs respectively, of which the first was prior to the Vaccination Act, the second was when Vaccination was made compulsory, and the third when it was enforced. The average annual percentage of deaths from these diseases in persons of all ages has steadily increased throughout these periods. The ratio of increase has been very nearly one-tenth per cent, annually between the first and third, whilst the second holds a middle place between the two. The exact figures are 0.7745 per cent. of population in the first period, 0.8279 in the second, and 0.8707 in the third. In other words, the increase of the death-rate has reached very nearly one per thousand per annum from 15 selected diseases during the very years when Vaccination was passing by legal enactment from general to universal use. The 15 diseases—which are atrophy and debility (including premature birth), tabes mesenterica, convulsions, cholera, diarrhea, diphtheria, bronchitis, pneumonia, whoopingcough, erysipelas, pyaemia, skin disease, scrofula, syphilis, and small-pox----have clearly been chosen for examination as being of that class which might be expected to find especially favorable conditions for their development in a diseased state of the blood. But the theory suggested by the figures we have quoted goes a step further than this, and appears to affirm that these diseases are actually disseminated by the practice of Vaccination. The poison must be conveyed in infinitesimally small doses, yet in sufficient quantities to spread some of these diseases to such an extent as to cause a very large increase in the death-rate, especially among very young children. All of the 15 diseases enumerated are not increasingly fatal; and, indeed, the deaths from some have fallen off considerably. Those which are the worst are the following, arranged in the order of their fatality :—Syphilis, bronchitis, pyaemia (blood-poisoning), and skin-disease.
    It is no new theory that poisonous matter can be conveyed from one person to another in the vaccine lymph employed in the process of Vaccination, but it has never yet received such confirmation as in the figures which we now have before us. It is, indeed, a most serious matter to find that the deaths from the 15 diseases have increased in England and Wales from 124,799— in 1847,—to 217,707—in 1875,—whilst the population has only risen from 18 millions to less than 23 millions"

In the presence of this wide-spread repugnance, and with such evidence of its evils,*

* HERBERT SPENCER, speaking of the deplorable and increasing ill-health of the rising generation, thus expresses himself :—" We are not certain that the propagation of subdued forms of constitutional disease through the agency of vaccination is not a part-cause. Sundry facts in pathology suggest the inference that when the system of a vaccinated child is excreting the vaccine virus by means of pustules, it will tend also to excrete through such pustules other morbific matters; especially if these morbific matters are of a kind, ordinarily got rid of by the skin, as are some of the worst of them. Hence it is very possible—probable even—that a child with a constitutional taint, too slight to show itself in visible disease, may, through the medium of vitiated vaccine lymph taken from it, convey a like constitutional taint to other children, and these to others."—Education, p. 181.—1881.

the outcome of piteous experiences, the most enthusiastic pro-vaccinators will hardly deny that the system can only be kept up. by stringent coercive measures; and this coercion is more extended, and more cruel and oppressive, than is generally supposed.

Reluctant mothers are dragooned to the Vaccination Stations under threats of summonses, fines, and imprisonment. Inquisitorial and illegal visits are made in schools, and from house to house, to search out unvaccinated children. *

*One of these zealous vaccinating officials, Mr. J. G. GERRANS, M. R. C. S., (like Dr. ALFRED CARPENTER, of Croydon,) demanding a more stringent enforcement of the Vaccination Acts, wrote to a medical journal describing his own zeal, as follows :—" I have one of the largest Vaccinations in London, derived from a densely populated neighbourhood, and which I look closely after; but, though I hunt them like a bloodhound on the murderer’s trail, I am often thrown out."—Lancet, May 23rd, 1863.

Parents summoned before Justices, in the majority of cases, are denied permission to justify themselves, or shew cause for their non-compliance with the Acts. Their medical witnesses, who can certify to the dangers attending the operation, are not permitted to testify; in short, the anti-vaccinators in England, like the negro race in America during the reign of the Democratic slavocracy, have no rights which magistrates are bound to respect.

VACCINATION IN THE WORKHOUSES.

A starving mother is compelled to go to the workhouse to give birth to her child, and children born under such adverse circumstances, as the high registration rate of mortality indicates, have no ordinary difficulties to contend with. Their physical vitality is often of the feeblest description, and would need the tenderest nurture, even amidst favorable surroundings, to give them a fair chance in the struggle for life. To afflict such ill-conditioned children with a wound, and introduce an artificial disease like cow-pox, which always produces an illness, and sometimes death, is, under such circumstances, inhuman. But what will be said of vaccinating such children when only a few days old? Yet such is the habitual practice at some of the Metropolitan Workhouses, and it is done under the sanction and with the authority of the Local Government Board! A circular addressed to Clerks of Guardians, dated January 2 7th, 1881, and sent to all the Unions, says:—

"Some Boards of Guardians have passed a resolution requiring the medical officer, subject to the exercise of his judgment as to making exceptions in particular cases, to secure the Vaccination of all children born in the workhouse as soon as possible after birth; and it has been found practicable, as a rule, to vaccinate children when six days old, and to inspect .the results on the thirteenth day, as the mothers, in such cases, rarely leave the workhouse within a fortnight after their confinement."

Dr. G. E. YARROW, public vaccinator and medical officer to the Holborn Union, stated, in the Lancet for April 2nd, 1881, that he had vaccinated between five and six hundred infants under seven days old, and the medical officer of the Lambeth Infirmary reports to the same journal that he is in the habit of vaccinating children 24 hours old! The Holborn Board of Guardians, to the credit of their humanity and good sense, have rebelled against this Herodian cruelty, and refused to go beyond the general law, which prescribes a limit of three months for all children, except the mother consents; and Dr. YARROW admits (British Medical Journal, April 2nd, 1881), that the practical result of this change will be, that, instead of 16 per cent. of the workhouse children being vaccinated as heretofore, there will now be none. He adds, "for even if they remained long enough, anyone may perceive how useless it would be to waste time in urging the point with the class of persons I have described." Finding this prediction realized, the Local Government Board have written to the Holborn Guardians to know "why such a small percentage of children born in the workhouse were vaccinated ?" One unfortunate infant, the daughter of CHARLOTTE WILLIAMS, was vaccinated by Dr. W. M. DUNLOP, medical officer of the St. Pancras Workhouse, London, when seven days old. The mother left the workhouse on the 23rd of December last, and, finding the infant’s arm swollen from its elbow to the fingers, *

* "Some of the vaccinators use real instruments of torture-ivory points are driven into the flesh, and wounds ensue which become erysipelatous, and, in delicate constitutions of weakly children, fatal."—Dr. ALLNATT, in The Times, August 31st, 1882.

took it to Dr. CHALMERS, 43, Caledonian Road, Islington, who attended it until it succumbed, some days afterwards, in great suffering.’ An inquest was held upon the body by Dr. DANFORD THOMAS, on the 11th of January, when a verdict was returned by the jury "that death was caused by suppurative meningitis, following ulceration of vaccine vesicles on the arm, and they were of opinion, from the result of the post mortem examination, that it would have been well to have postponed Vaccination in the present case." Dr. CHALMERS, who had attended the child, stated that he "had not much doubt that death had resulted from the depressing effects of the Vaccination." The medical officer, Dr. DUNLOP, deposed that he had performed the operation on 3,000 children, but had never had a similar case before. But it is not easy to understand how he could arrive at so satisfactory a conclusion, seeing that the parents usually leave the workhouse a fortnight after birth, and immediately after the operation, and that these early vaccinations are only defended on the ground "that it might be impossible to trace the mother’s whereabouts." "Stripped of all technicalities," says the Echo, "the verdict of the jury was ‘Death from Vaccination.’" Dr. BALLARD, Inspector of Vaccination for the Local Government Board, was present at this inquest, and did his utmost to prevent the return of a verdict so damaging to vaccine prestige. When asked by the Coroner whether there was any objection to these early vaccinations, he responded with alacrity, "Not a bit in the world." ,. On referring, however, to Dr. BALLARD’S Essay on Vaccination, for which the author received a prize of £100, we find that, when discussing the question of vaccinating new-born infants, he adduces the testimony of eminent physicians leading to an entirely opposite conclusion. BOUSQUET avers that "in very young infants the intestines sympathise, and that enteritis or diarrhoea may result." BARTHEZ " met with two cases in which infants vaccinated on the second day from birth, suffered severely from the effects of Vaccination, and one of them died." M. LEGROUX states that "he has been in the habit of vaccinating newly-born infants, and has become convinced that the number of punctures has much to do with the occasional accidents that followed." M. DANYAN, at the Paris Maternité,*

* The Countess DE NOAILLES writes, January 14th, 1883: "Madame DR SAULCY, one of the ex-Empress’s ladies, told me that at the Maternité, where babies were vaccinated a week after birth, they ‘meurent comme les mouches’ " (die like flies).

deposes that out of 200 infants vaccinated on the first days of birth, only three accidents occurred—one an abscess, which got well, and two cases of erysipelas of the arm, one of which was fatal. Concerning the foregoing witnesses, Dr. BALLARD says:—"These writers do not deny—as, indeed, they cannot— that accidents sometimes happen, and that the lesson these accidents impart to us is this, that Vaccination is not a thing to trifle with or to make light of." And, again, "Let every parent remember, and let the doctor remember, that they are inflicting upon the child a positive disease." This publication, ‘which it is generally believed led to Dr. BALLARD’S appointment as Government Inspector of Vaccination, contains also much valuable and instructive matter, including 100 pages devoted to the alleged dangers of Vaccination, in which various syphilitic disasters are recorded, in no respect less terrible than that which occurred at Algier in December 1880. This book has, unfortunately, long been out of print. Since Dr. BALLARD’S appointment his present lucrative position on the Local Governmen board, he has been most respectfully silent concerning the injurious and fatal consequences so frequently following Vaccination and so unreservedly avowed in his Essay.

 VACCINATION IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

A parent desires to send his boy to a public school, and on the subject of this indictment it is immaterial which school is selected—Eton, Harrow, Winchester, Rugby, or Marlborough,—they are alike influenced by their medical attendants, who generally advise Vaccination on entrance, and again on the occasion of every small-pox epidemic. The following is a copy of a letter received in April, 1882, from one of the masters at Rugby:--

"I beg to enclose a prospectus of the school, and to add that boys are vaccinated soon after entrance, unless they have been vaccinated within a comparatively recent period. (Signed) "C. ELSER."

When the parent receives the first school-bill, he finds therein a charge of half-a-guinea for Vaccination. Now, to attack a healthy boy with an artificial disease, as is the custom, without the consent of the parents, and to charge half-a-guinea for the operation, is not only a piece of impertinence, but is a gross outrage on parental rights, if not a downright robbery, and this is the light in which it is regarded by many parents whose sons have been thus treated. Remonstrances have been made by Mr. WALTER HALL, of London, and the Rev. JOHN POSTLETHWAITE, of Broughton-in- Furness, whose sons have been subjected to Vaccination at Rugby, but without effecting any reform in this irrational and arbitrary proceeding. Nor is any reform to be expected from the school authorities, who, indeed, are generally supposed to share with the medical vaccinator, the not inconsiderable fees accruing from this practice. Let it be understood that the vaccination of 1,000 boys at a public school, may signify an addition of 500 guineas to the medical exchequer. Without imputing to the profession the advocacy of Vaccination from mercenary motives, will any reasonable person maintain that there can be no pecuniary bias when Vaccination is recommended under such circumstances? To suppose so, would be to assume a disinterestedness which is not claimed by members either of this or any other profession. Mr. HERBERT SPENCER tells us that all facts are distorted by the medium through which they reach us, and it would be absurd to assume that the value of Vaccination, when seen through spectacles which disclose such munificent rewards, is not altogether different from what it would be if the vaccinating doctors were only paid one shilling or one shilling and sixpence per head, and, as suggested by Dr. CHARLES PIGEON to the French Chambers,*

*Lettre a Messieurs les Deputes, par le Docteur CH. PIGEON. Fourchambault (Nièvre). 1883.

were made responsible for the injuries which so often, sooner or later, follow the operation. The risk, now unjustly thrown upon reluctant parents, would then, to some extent, go where it properly belonged, and those who recommend and uphold the rite would share alike the fees and the responsibility. Very persistent efforts have been made to make Vaccination a qualification for admission into the London Board Schools; and medical officials, with the connivance of the school authorities, have inspected thousands of scholars during the late epidemic in 1881, and illegally insisted on their submission to the rite. The London School Board have, either willingly or unwillingly, played into the hands of the vaccinators by demanding the production of a certificate of birth on the entrance of each child into a Board School. The zeal of vaccinating officials is shewn in the following paragraphs from The Times of Saturday, September 16th, 1882:--

"HOW TO STAMP OUT SMALLPOX.—In the Annual Report of St. Saviour’s Board of Works, Dr. BIANCHI, the medical officer, states that, during the year, he inspected over I,900 children at the various schools in the district, and found that, of this number, 61 had never been vaccinated at all, 372 had evidences of insufficient protection by only having one or two faint marks, while the remaining number ,were sufficiently vaccinated. He gave the names and addresses of the unvaccinated children to the vaccination officer, and requested him to take steps to have them vaccinated immediately. 168 cases of small-pox occurred during the year, 20 of which proved fatal."

The 372 cases of only one or two faint marks had, doubtless, been certified as successfully vaccinated.

This inquisitorial system has been instigated by the Local Government Board in a most despotic manner. Their report for last year says:---

"The result of these visitations appears to have been very satisfactory. Many unvaccinated children were discovered who had been born in other districts, and a large number of vaccinations were secured. In Bethnal Green, for instance, 17,380 houses were visited, and 1,978 children were found unvaccinated, of whom 1,028 are known to have been afterwards ‘operated upon with success. Similarly, in Fulham, 17,783 houses were visited, 465 unvaccinated children were discovered, and of these all but 45 were subsequently duly accounted for as regards Vaccination."

 VACCINATION IN THE POST OFFICE.

A young man seeks a situation in the Post Office. He furnishes evidence of an irreproachable character, is in the enjoyment of excellent health, passes the preliminary examination with credit, and is in all respects well equipped for the position for which he has applied. There is, however, one further qualification of which he is reminded by the medical officer of the Department—he must be vaccinated. The following letter from the General Post Office furnishes official proof of this requirement :

GENERAL POST OFFICE, LONDON, "15th September, 1882.

"SIR,—I beg leave to inform you that it is necessary that all candidates for appointment in this Department should be successfully vaccinated, unless previously vaccinated within seven years, or unless they have had the small-pox within the same period.*

*"Your obedient servant, (Signed)"S. A. BLACKWOOD, Secretary. *On the 28th of March a petition for the Repeal of the Compulsory vaccination Laws was received by Mr. YOUNG, 114, Victoria Street, signed by 235 employes of the Post Office in South London, the whole of the signatures having been obtained in three days, which indicates how this medical rite is regarded amongst this useful class of civil servants.

And a similar regulation is in force at Her Majesty’s Customs. At the Inland Revenue Department, Somerset House, the advantages of compulsory re-vaccination are reserved for the inferior and junior servants of a particular department, as will be seen from the following communication:--

"INLAND REEVENUE, SOMERSET HOUSE, LONDON, W.C.
    "February 2nd, 1883.
"SIR,—Referring to your letter of the 26th ultimo, I have to acquaint you that there are no printed or written regulations on the subject ‘of the Vaccination of the employes of this office. For many years past, however, it has been the practice whenever a stamping room boy cannot produce direct testimony of recent Vaccination, to cause him to undergo that operation, which is performed by the Board’s medical officer.
    "I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
            "F. S. ROBINSON."

Surely the older servants and chiefs of the Department have more need of a renewal of the prophylactic than the "stamping boys," whose vaccination, it may be presumed, is of comparatively recent date!

VACCINATION IN THE POLICE FORCE.

In this department of the public service, the same ordeal must be gone through; policemen are required to be vaccinated when they enter the force, and are subjected to re-vaccination during times of epidemic. I have heard of policemen who said they had been vaccinated six or seven times, and had even then been severely attacked by small-pox. The following letter is from the Chief of Police, in reply to an inquiry as to the regulations in practice :—

             "4, WHITEHALL PLACE, S.W., 1st May, 1882.
    "SIR,—I have to acquaint you that, by direction of the Secretary of State for the Home Department, all men who join the Metropolitan Police Force are vaccinated prior to their admission. There are not any printed regulations on the subject.
        "Your obedient servant,
                (Signed) "E. Y. W. HENDERSON."

The Head of the Police throws the responsibility of this medical infliction upon the Home Secretary, Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT, who, in turn, would, doubtless, father it upon the Medical Department of the Privy Council. At any rate, many of Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT’S constituents will be surprised at his issue of such an order, for when, during his candidature in 1881, he was waited upon at Derby by a deputation of anti-vaccinators, he made use of the following words in his reply :—

"If it can be shewn that Vaccination does not diminish small-pox, compulsion cannot be justified. As to other diseases being conveyed by the vaccine matter, it is very probable that such is the case, even when great care is taken, but it is the question of the balance of advantages."

Now, if Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT would study the Registrar-General’s Returns, he would see that small-pox epidemics have paid no respect to Vaccination, as will be shewn hereafter; and, as he admits the dangers attending the operation, he could hardly do less than rescind this edict, and leave it to those useful public servants to decide whether they will incur the risk or not. Mr. H. D. DUDGEON, of Quorn, writes, under date September 22nd, 1882:--

"There are two ex-policemen near here incapacitated since their revaccination, and consequently invalided. People who suffer, seldom like to be advertised in any way, and it may easily be understood that it is felt as a sort of stigma to have it said, that a man or his child has become permanently diseased or disabled by Vaccination. There is also fear of the land-owner, the pressure of parish magnates, and of possible pecuniary loss, should they incautiously bring Vaccination into disrepute."

A policeman on duty near Rotten Row, Hyde Park, was interviewed on the 2nd of April last, and said that "all policemen were vaccinated on joining the force, and re-vaccinated, if possible, during epidemics. One occurred two years ago, and all the men were offered Vaccination, but all refused as far as I know; I would not stand it myself." If policemen do their duty by protecting our lives and property, the State has no right to subject them to a useless operation, which is now admitted to be not unfrequently attended with serious and fatal results.

VACCINATION IN THE ARMY.

Vaccination and re-vaccination in this branch of Her Majesty’s service is rigorously enforced, not only upon soldiers, but upon their wives and children, and when a man is found to be insusceptible to the infection of cow-pox, a record is kept, and he is re-vaccinated at some subsequent period. The Army Regulations (p. 5, Section 3, Article 619), compel the medical officer to report yearly whether every man, woman, and child belonging to the regiment bears unequivocal marks of either small-pox or cow-pox, and require him to keep a register of the names, appearances, and days of Vaccination, of all patients vaccinated. Article 620 prescribes that Vaccination is to be resorted to whenever small-pox is prevalent amongst the troops, their wives, and children, not only wherever the marks of Vaccination are unsatisfactory or indistinct, or where a long period has elapsed since the date of the operation, but wherever previous re-vaccination has been unsuccessful. Article 625 provides for the re-vaccination of all soldiers’ children, wherever 10 years have elapsed since the date of their having been vaccinated. Article 628 provides that medical officers are not to make punctures in less than two places in re-vaccination, or in less than three places when the evidence of original Vaccination is indistinct, or single. The serious nature of the operation may be understood from the fact, that in some regiments it is customary to allow a week or a fortnight’s suspension of drill duty, to give time to recover from the effects of the operation. But "bad arms," according to the admissions of the men themselves, are not rare as a consequence, and some never recover. While staying at Eastbourne, a short time ago, one of the patients (a discharged soldier) in the Convalescent Home, told me that, on the re-vaccination of the men in his regiment, six of them died from the effects of the operation, and the life of a seventh man was only saved by cutting off his arm at the shoulder. In the year 1860, thirty recruits from Stockport were vaccinated at the Shorncliffe Camp, of whom 13 died within six months, from the injuries received in the operation, and Mt. DUNCOMBE, M.P.,*

*"Mr. DUNCOMBE’S resolution was for a ‘return of the names and age of every non-commissioned officer and private vaccinated in the Shorncliffe Camp during the months of February, March, and April last; the names of those who have since died the conditions exhibited in the arms of those who died; together with the number of amputations adopted to save the lives of those affected with vaccination.’ "—Lancet, June 30, 1860.

moved for a return shewing the extent of the disaster. This information was, like the disaster at Algiers, in 1880, religiously suppressed. The following is part of a letter which appeared in the Lancet for July 7th, 1860, signed a "Military Surgeon," which will throw some light upon the matter :—

"VACCINATION AT SHORNCLIFFE.— SIR,— Having seen in the Lancet of last week an article commenting on a return moved for by Mr. DUNCOMBE, respecting those who have died from Vaccination, the number of amputations required to save life, &c., at the camp at Shorncliffe, I can only say that it would be advisable to extend this return, and ask for the number of those who have died or had their arms amputated since the promulgation of an order from the late Director-General ALEXANDER, limiting the performance of the operation to a particular part of the arm, viz., two inches above the elbow-joint in front, immediately over the insertion of the deltoid muscle. The results from this unfortunate erroneous rule, have, I fear, produced an amount of injury that will never be known, as it will be exceedingly difficult, even in the present day, to procure an accurate return, as military medical men are too fully alive to the injury likely to occur to their future prospects of promotion in the service, were they found ready and willing to expose such mistakes. The irritation, inflammation, and consequent loss of limb, and in some cases of life, from adopting this rule, I myself am practically acquainted with, as I was on board, not very long since, in a case where a fine healthy young soldier had his arm amputated at the shoulder-joint to save his life, in consequence of mortification supervening upon erysipelatous inflammation of the forearm after Vaccination. I also saw, at the same time, another case, in which, although the limb was saved, it has been rendered worse than useless—in fact, an incumbrance—to the man, from the suppuration and inflammation following Vaccination. The man’s services are, of course, lost to the army."

Mr. BENJAMIN DREW, of Radford, Nottinghamshire, who was formerly in the army, writes to Mr. SCRIMSHAW, of Nottingham, that he saw two soldiers in Parkhurst Barracks, Isle of Wight, whose arms had been amputated in consequence of mortification following Vaccination.

On the 6th of March, 1883, Mr. P. A. TAYLOR asked the Secretary of State for War "whether every recruit, on entering the army, was compelled to be vaccinated, without reference either to any objection he might entertain to the operation, to the fact of his having been previously vaccinated, or to his having had the small-pox; and, if so, whether recruiting officers have orders to explain this fact before enlistment?" The MARQUIS of HARTINGTON replied, "Every recruit, without exception, is vaccinated on entering the army: no orders are given to recruiting officers to explain the regulations as to Vaccination before enlistment, but no case of objection has ever been brought to notice." *---Times, March 7th, 1883.

* The following letter, from a private soldier, appeared in the London Echo for October 12th, 1883;— "VACCINATION IN THE ARMY. — SIR,— I know there is fair play for us anti-vaccinators in the Echo; will you allow me to say a few words about Vaccination in the army? Early last March, ML P. A. TAYLOR, M. P., at my request, put a question in the House of Commons as to the Vaccination of recruits—a rather important question to me, as I had just previously entered the army. The MARQUIS of HARTINGTON said that ‘the re-vaccination of recruits is performed without reference to any objection the recruit may entertain to the operation, and no instructions are given to recruiting sergeants to acquaint recruits of the fact. No complaints have ever been received.’ I really think his lordship must have been poking fun at the recruits. No complaints, indeed! Why, anyone with five minutes’ experience of army discipline will have learnt that compliance, and not complaint, is the order. I objected to the Vaccination and some other matters in rather a practical manner, and the result is that, having proved that the law was on my side, and proving, too, that there is a wonderfully strong feeling amongst soldiers against Vaccination, my commanding officer gave me my discharge, at a time when I was brought down almost to the grave with anxiety, hard work, and insufficient food. The truth is, that very many men would object if they dared, but in the official mind’s eye the gravest calamity that can befall a soldier is for him to use his reason. No complaints! What painful irony! Vaccination or starvation; Vaccination or deprivation of wife and children, and the knowledge of their wants without the power of supplying them. "HENRY DUNKLEY."

Four days afterwards, a sentry standing on duty in front of one of the Royal palaces was interviewed:

Q."Can you inform me whether the recruits in your regiment are vaccinated ?" A. "Yes, they are." Q. "Do they ever object to Vaccination ?" A. "Why!" (looking surprised) "it’s no use objecting, ‘cos we knows it’s got to be done, but we don’t like it." Q. "Do you know of any case of injury through Vaccination?" "Do you mean ‘bad arms’ ?" "Yes." A. "Well, I often hear of ‘em; I was down with one four months myself, and had to lay by. I’ve known of two or three men disabled and discharged through Vaccination." Another soldier, of the 85th Regiment of Foot, April 2nd, said, "Well, sir, you see it’s like this, most of us object to Vaccination, and we don’t have it done if we can possibly help it."

Q."But how do you help it ?" A. "Well, when we’re asked about it, some of us say what is not true, that we were vaccinated, say, two years ago; when they let us alone." On the 19th of April, an intelligent trooper of the Scots Guards said, "he had known a number of men sent to hospital through Vaccination, where they stayed three or four months, but at length recovered." Q. "What do the troops generally think of Vaccination?" A. "They don’t hold to it, and don’t think it does any good; besides, it’s very unpleasant for 20 or 30 of us to stand, with bare arms, waiting to be done." Q. "When vaccinated, do you have to attend drill as usual ?" A. "Yes; but the arm exercise, for expanding the chest, is stopped until the arm is well."

Q."Is there any advantage in Vaccination, in your opinion?" A. "Not a bit." More recently, another soldier, whose face was deeply scarred with smallpox, and who had been twice vaccinated, gave it as his firm conviction that "Vaccination was a ——— sham." There can be no doubt, from the general dislike of Vaccination among the artizan classes, that the requirement is a cause of difficulty in obtaining recruits.*

*Mr. GRAHAM SPENCER, Parliamentary Agent, reports that a Petition against Compulsory Vaccination, signed by over 100 soldiers, was presented to the House of Commons on the 15th of last August.

The tragedies attending Vaccination are not confined to any particular class or country, and although, doubtless, as much care is exercised in the selection of vaccine virus for recruits in the army as anywhere, yet the cases of injury are frequent and distressing. Many of them have been subjected to much artful smothering, with the praiseworthy design of keeping the Jennerian prophylactic in creditable odour; but the facts have been too terrible to admit of the attempted suppression, for "murder will out." In December, 1880, fifty-eight young men joined the 4th Regiment of Zouaves, at Algiers. In compliance with the rules of the service, they were vaccinated by the military surgeons, and the whole 58, without exception, were infected, and physically ruined by inoculation with the most terrible of all diseases. The details were published in Le Petit Colon, of Algiers, and in the Paris Journal d ‘Hygiene for June 30th and August 25th, 1881, edited by Dr. DE PIETRA SANTA, a scientific gentleman, eminent alike for his ability and courage. This case was also briefly alluded to by the Paris Correspondent of the Daily News, and reproduced in the Vaccination Inquirer for August and October. The fullest details, however, appeared in La Science Libre, published at Nice, from the pen of an eyewitness, residing on the spot, Dr. P. A. DESJARDINS, after a careful medical examination of the unfortunate youths. From this narrative, it appears that on the 3oth of December, 1880, the recruits in the ₄th Regiment of Zouaves were conducted to the Hôpital du Dey, Algiers, to be vaccinated according to the regulations of the service. Two military surgeons operated, the vaccine being extracted from a couple of infants under two years old, apparently, in excellent health, in whom the lymph appeared to be genuine and normal. Those vaccinated from one child displayed no special incident calling for remark; but the 58 youths (says this medical authority writing from personal observation) who were vaccinated from the Spanish child, developed in a few weeks all the characteristics of syphilis. The marks on the arm were disquieting, and the symptoms so threatening, that the infected youths were, some ten weeks after the operation, sent to hospital. In a month, all but six were dismissed, but they were soon compelled to return, as it was discovered that the terrible disease had infected their constitutions. Dr. DESJARDINS further says: " Some had ulcers, others affections of the palate; some shewed discoloration of the skin; affections of the teeth, gums, and joints, also presented themselves to my observation, in addition to the usual symptoms of this dangerous and disgusting malady. I also noticed decay of the hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes!" Then follows a list of the names and regimental numbers of these unfortunate young men, whose health and future prospects have been fatally blighted by this State-enforced operation.

This terrible example of the effects of Vaccination, when performed under the strict and careful regulations prescribed by the military service in the French Army, has been brought to the notice of the House of Commons no less than six times. The French Minister of War, and the Minister of Commerce, have also been written to—the latter being the chief of the vaccine department in the French service—but no official admission of the disaster has been obtained, and Mr. DODSON, the President of the Local Government Board, declined to publish the correspondence he had received upon the subject with the French Government, though urged by Mr. C. H. HOPWOOD to do so. This vaccine tragedy was referred to, and vouched for, at the International Anti-Vaccination Congress at Cologne, October, 1881.*

*When cases of vaccino-syphilis are disclosed, they are always coupled with the useful medical dictum that they are of the "rarest occurrence." The following list of authenticated and published cases will shew that this opinion is not borne out by experience.

VACCINO-SYPHILIS.

The following is a list of authenticated and published cases of transmission of this one disease alone:--

Lancereaux has published the following Cases of vaccino-syphills:--

Dr. DESJARDINS writes—January, 1883—that, "several of the unfortunate youths are still living at Algiers, ruined for life by this terrible State-ordained infliction."

The United States military reports furnish numerous details of Vaccine disasters, even more terrible than the one at Algiers. [The excessive mortality among the prisoners at Andersonville, in the American Civil War, has been mainly attributed to the general re-vaccination, practised upon them under conditions of great insalubrity.] JOSEPH JONES, M.D., Professor of Physiology and Pathology, University, Nashville, U.S., 1868, says :—

"The Federal prisoners confined in Camp Sumpter, Andersonville, Georgia, were vaccinated, and, in a number of cases, large gangrenous ulcers appeared at the points where the vaccine lymph had been inserted, causing extensive destruction of tissues, exposing arteries, nerves and bones, and necessitating amputation in more than one instance. From the establishment of the prison, on February 24th, 1864, to October 1st, over 10,000 Federal prisoners died, i.e., near one-third of the entire number perished in less than seven months. These accidents led to the belief among some of the prisoners that the surgeons had intentionally introduced poisonous matter into their arms during Vaccination. No wonder they had such a persuasion, seeing that about 100 of them lost the use of their arms, and about 200 were so injured that they soon afterwards died. Though some medical officers were tried before a special military commission, convened in accordance with orders from the War Office at Washington, on the charge of having wilfully poisoned the Federal prisoners with vaccine lymph, it was shewn that the unhappy consequences of Vaccination at Andersonville were paralleled in the Northern prisons. ‘After careful inquiries,’ says Dr. JONES, ‘among returned Confederate prisoners, I am convinced that the accidents attending Vaccination were quite as numerous and severe in Northern prisons as in Southern."

And Dr. FRANK HASTINGS HAMILTON, late Lieutenant-Colonel Medical Inspector, United States Army, confesses that Vaccination almost constantly produces the same results (i.e., ugly and intractable sores), and is in many cases followed by abscesses in the axillary, cervical, and other glands. On the 26th of May last, 68 recruits were vaccinated at Dordrecht, Holland, in compliance with the usual military order. In a few days, seven of them were found to be more or less injured in the infected part, five very seriously, of whom three died after acute suffering. The Minister of War, Mr. WEITZEL, was interpellated in the Second Chamber of the Netherlands Parliament by Mr. FABIUS; the painful facts were admitted, and a circular was thereupon issued by the War Office to the effect that Vaccination would be no longer compulsory in the army. It may be here mentioned that enforced Vaccination in the Federal Army, Switzerland, was abrogated on the 26th of December, 1882, on account of "accidents" inseparable from the operation, and it is now said, that not a solitary recruit will accept the Jennerian ordinance.

It would be easy to multiply evidence of injuries and fatalities consequent upon the operation so rigorously enforced in the militaly service, to any extent, if space afforded. The question that may pertinently be asked is, Does the rite protect the soldier from small-pox? Mr. JOHN SIMON, in his evidence before the Parliamentary Committee of 1871, maintained that it did, and Dr. SEATON designated our re-vaccinated Army as a "perfectly protected population." Mr. JOHN PICKERING, of Leeds, an able statistician, examined the official documents, and found that in the 10 years from 1859 to 1868 there were 117 small-pox deaths in the army, equal to an annual rate of 1.46 per 10,000, whilst the small-pox death-rate during the same period amongst the civil population, was only 0.86 per 10,000, that is, less than two-thirds of the army rate.

The small-pox epidemic of 1870-2 paid no respect whatever to this "protected population," either at home or abroad. On March 5th, 1871, under the head of Parliamentary News, we find that Colonel WILSON PATTEN asked whether it was true that a battalion of Guards had been stopped on its way to Dublin, on account of the smallpox having broken out? and if so, whether a portion of it had been ordered to Fleetwood? Mr. CARDWELL replied that it was true that a battalion of Guards had been stopped in London, in consequence of the small-pox having broken out, but it had not yet been decided where they should be sent. Again: in the Medical Press and Circular (April 26th, 1871, p. 359), we find a paragraph headed "Small-pox in the Coldstream Guards," which reads to this effect :—

"At Dublin, a bad case of small-pox occurred in the second battalion Coldstream Guards, immediately after its arrival in Dublin. It will be remembered that the battalion was reported to be infected with this terrible epidemic, previous to its departure from London."

In the same paper, same date, and at p. 360, will be found the following:--

"We learn with regret that it has been officially reported that small-pox has broken out amongst the troops at Malta, although not at present to any alarming extent. At the last accounts, the epidemic continues to spread, and there was a talk, when the last mail left, should it not abate speedily, of delaying the return of the ships of the flying squadron."

Sir J. CLARKE JERVOISE, in reply to a question. of the Chairman, Mr. W. E. FORSTER, at the Parliamentary Vaccination Inquiry, in 1871, referred to the then existing severe outbreak of small-pox amongst the re-vaccinated Scots Fusilier Guards. In 1868, a severe epidemic of small-pox broke out amongst the soldiers in the Sheffield Barracks. The Sheffield Independent thereupon denounced the anti-vaccinators as the cause of it, and suggested that the soldiers must have caught it in the neighbourhood of the barracks. A careful inquiry on the part of the Chief Sanitary Officer, Mr. HENRY B. BATES, accompanied by Inspector KING, was instituted, and the report states— "that the whole of that district was found not only free from small-pox, but in a remarkably healthy state." The Inspector and Mr. BATES then visited the Barracks, and reported the disgusting and dangerous state of the privies. "Mr. CORBETT agreed to adopt immediate measures to abate the evils pointed out, and to call the attention of the War Department to structural defects, with ‘a view to prevent their recurrence."—Sheffield Telegraph, March 9^th 1868. Mr. A. WOLSTENHOLME, of Sheffield, informs the writer that this epidemic spread from the barracks to the civil population, and continued several years.

In the Appendix to "The Truth about Vaccination," by Mr. ERNEST HART, Editor of the British Medical Journal, it is admitted that from 1859 to 1876, there were 1,306 cases of small-pox in the army, with 94 deaths. Nor have the effects of Vaccination of the military in continental nations—where re-vaccination is practised de rigueur—been one whit more encouraging than at home. The Morning Advertiser for November 24th, 1870, reports that "the small-pox, is making still greater havoc in the ranks of the Prussian Army, which is said to have 30,000 small-pox patients in its hospitals." "Madame DE SAULCY, of the ex-Empress’s household, wrote to the Countess DE NOAILLES, 6^th of April, 1871, and mentions that when the smallpox broke out, the Minister of War ordered general revaccination in the army; but, after a short experience, he had to stop the practice, which was ascertained to have spread,the disease, and to have carried it into places where it was not heard of before."—Co-operator, May 6th, 1871. M. BESNIER (Maladies Regnates, Paris, 1872, page 28) says: "Seeking for the duration of the vaccine protection, M. CHAMPOLLION states, that of 3,563 of the military attacked by small-pox in 1868, 2,432 had been vaccinated in their infancy, and 1,131 after their enlistment: that is to say, within an average period of two-and-a-half years."

One of the most widely-circulated arguments in support of Vaccination, ‘is the asserted high death-rate from small-pox of the French Army in the war of 1870-1, as compared with the German re-vaccinated Army. In 1872, the British Medical Journal said :—" According to a statement made at the Statistical Congress, held this year in St. Petersburg, the total number of deaths from small-pox in the German Army, during the recent Franco-German war, was 263, This small mortality is attributed to the system of Compulsory Vaccination, which every man who enters the army must undergo. On the other hand, in the French Army, where re-Vaccination is not compulsory, the number of deaths—as stated by a French authority—was 23,469."

These figures were cited by Sir LYON PLAYFAIR in the Vaccination Debate on Mr. P. A. TAYLOR’S motion in the House of Commons, on June 19th, as a crucial proof of the danger of neglecting Vaccination and re-vaccination in the French Army: their presentation, in a tone of bold assurance, put all suggestions of doubt aside, and the statement of the 23,469 deaths was received with ringing cheers. Sir LYON gave for his authority Dr. LEON COLIN’s pamphlet La Variole, which he held up as evidence. But that book contains no such figures, and Dr. W. B. CARPENTER, who had already made much capital out of them for Vaccination, by sending them in a tract to every Member of Parliament, and publishing them extensively in the Press, on being pressed for an explanation by ALEXANDER WHEELER, of Darlington, has been constrained to admit that the French Army Medical Returns of the Franco-German war have no such records; in fact there are no authentic statistics of such character in existence in either country (Vide Vaccination Inquirer, Dec 1883, p.174) Much virtuous indignation has been expressed at the refusal of the anti-vaccinators to accept on hearsay these startling and improbable figures, but our caution has been justified by the event, and the distinct avowal of the French Government that no such figures exist in their official documents shews that, in this instance, as in so many others, the vaccinators have been in the wrong, and the anti-vaccinators in the right.

Dr. CARPENTER, in his original pamphlet, made his case appear stronger, by asserting that re-vaccination was not compulsory in the French Army, which assertion he has also perforce withdrawn. The whole of the army, both old and new levies, had received the benefit of primary Vaccination, whatever that may be, and the first levies it is admitted were re-vaccinated. It is, indeed, among these first levies, according to Dr. OIDTMANN—a staff surgeon—that the largest small-pox mortality occurred.

Doubtless the mortality in the French Army during the Franco-German war was excessive, and Professor DE CHAUMONT and others have gratuitously attributed this to Vaccination being less effectively carried out than in the Prussian Army, though the Professor omitted to mention, when he introduced the subject at the Newcastle Sanitary Congress, that 3,000 Prussian soldiers died of small-pox during the campaign. The true cause of this mortality was observed and explained by Dr. H. OIDTMANN, Staff Surgeon and Chief Physician to the Hospitals at Verdun and St. Quentin, in his official report :— "In my numerous marches and halts in the campaign, 1870-75, I directed particular attention to the health statistics. After the taking of Verdun, I noticed that the rooms in which the French hospital patients were miserably decimated during the bombardment, were inexpressibly close and ill-smelling—breeding-places of small-pox poison. The only German physician of the garrison being unwell, it fell to my lot to root out these filthy lurking-holes of pestilence. I was physician of the garrison staff at St. Quentin, and all the statistics of the French, German, and International Hospitals, for six weeks in succession, passed through my hands. The enormous difference between the small-pox mortality of the two armies was caused by the crying neglect of hygienic precautions in the French Military Department, and by the excessive concentration of their system of stationary sick depots, as opposed to the freshness of the hygienic arrangements of the German hospitals, and the ambulatory movements of their scattered troops. No more decisive proof can exist of the correctness of my theory—that the strength and spread of small-pox is both proportioned to, and progressive with, the fostering and shutting in of the small-pox vapour—than these statistics of the FrancoGerman War."

Dr. OIDTMANN adds:--

"Shortly before the outbreak of the war, the whole of the French Army was re-vaccinated. This general Vaccination appeared rather to extend the disease than to protect from it."

Dr. BAYARD, of Paris, writing in October, 1872, says:--

"Every young soldier on his entrance into a regiment, is re-vaccinated. There are few persons in France above 20 years old who have not been revaccinated; and it is my opinion that the 23,469 deaths were cases, not deaths."

The opinion of Dr. OIDTMANN as to the cause of the severity of the small-pox in the French Army, receives confirmation from the official reports respecting the Vaccinations performed in France, during the year 1867, and presented to the Minister for Agriculture, Commerce, and Public Works, by the Imperial Academy of Medicine, Paris. In the excellent translation by Mr. GEORGE S. GIBBS, of Darlington, and published by Longmans, in 1870, I find the following :—

"Dr. DUCHARME, 1st class aide major of the 1st regiment of Voltigeurs of the Guard, engaged with great zeal and success in re-vaccination. A portion of his report is here transcribed :—‘After the medical inspection of 1867, of the 1st Regiment, by Baron LARREY, it was decided to practice re-vaccination in the regiment, and the operation was confided to me. On the 20th of July, 1867, I attended at the Academy with 9 of the 180 young men recently placed on the roll of the regiment. I chose youths of rosy complexion, sound temperament, and free from acquired or hereditary disease. [Here follow details of the mode of operation, and an explanation of the need for proceeding with caution, so as not to cause too many men to be off duty at one time.] I completed a first series of operations on the 31st December, 5867. The number re-vaccinated amounted then to 437, when towards the end of 1868, a smallpox epidemic in a highly confluent form broke out in the regiment. This epidemic, though not widespread (The expression is "assez restreinte," which may mean not of long duration, as it is not mentioned when the epidemic passed away) made nevertheless, many victims—among others one of the infirmary assistants, who died in the Hospital.’

"To what should we attribute this epidemic, in a regiment in which 437 re-vaccinations had been performed, and where the hygienic conditions, as to space, ventilation, and food, were excellent, when in the 2nd Regiment of Voltigeurs—lodged in a precisely similar barrack situated in the same court, but on whom no vaccinations had yet been made—not a single case of smallpox existed? What is the explanation of a phenomenon so striking?"

It has been alleged that the French prisoners, in the Franco-German War, carried the contagion into Germany, but Dr. NITFINGER, of Stuttgard, in a letter to Dr. DUPRE, March 1871, says that small-pox broke out as an epidemic in Germany, in the winter of 1870-7, before a single French prisoner had entered the country.

Professor ADOLF VOGT, of Berne University, has exhaustively investigated the facts concerning Small-Pox and Vaccination, and pronounces the Jennerian system an unmitigated delusion. In an admirable summary of the whole subject, under 34 heads, we find the following relating to military Vaccinations : —

‘1st.—That during the last half-century all recruits in the Prussian Army are vaccinated—that is, re-vaccinated——on entering the service, but that during this time, 60 per cent. more deaths from small-pox had taken place than in the civil population of corresponding age

"3rd.—That during the last Franco-German War, the men in the German Army suffered twice as much as the officers, the artillery ten times as much as the cavalry, and the Hessian contingent 60 times as much as the Wurtemburg; though all were under identical conditions in respect to Vaccination; that therefore, quite other influences, than even model Vaccination, must govern this pestilence."

"4th.—That the Bavarian contingent, unexceptionally re-vaccinated, lost nearly five times as many by small-pox in this same war as the Bavarian civil population of the same age at the same time, which is subject to no compulsory re-vaccination. . . .

"5th.—That the French prisoners in German fortresses, all re-vaccinated thoroughly on German soil, suffered more deaths from small-pox than the German garrisons, whose Vaccination protection was of older date. .

"9th.—That for years past, that corps of the French Army, which was only one-fourth as much vaccinated and re-vaccinated as the rest of the army. (i.e., had four times fewer vaccinations and re-vaccinations to reckon,) had, nevertheless, fewer small-pox cases and deaths from small-pox………….."

A practice whose supporters are so amazingly illogical, ought never to have had the assistance of the secular arm. For instance, Dr. COLIN, the French medical authority before-named, admits—or at least proposes to admit—that the vaccine protection has always been temporary. The general consensus of vaccinators estimates the protection to endure, in the long run, for seven years. As the average duration of life is about 42 years, and re-vaccination is with us a comparative novelty, it follows, that for the first-half of this century, not more than one-sixth can have been protected. Our average small-pox death-rate for a number of years previous to JENNER, is estimated by Sir LYON PLAYFAIR at 3,000 per million of population: and as vaccinators usually maintain with much earnestness, that small-pox is almost entirely unaffected by sanitation, the remaining five-sixths ought to have continued to furnish five-sixths of this annual 3,000 per million between the years 1800 and 1850, whereas the Registration Act of 1838 shews that the small-pox death-rate of England and Wales, ranged from 300 to 600 per million from 1838 to 1849. Yet no one really expects our anti-vaccine provincial towns with their numerous unvaccinated children to die of small-pox at 3,000 per million, in accordance with these medical theories. Anti-vaccinators are in fact less afflicted with small-pox than other men; they owe their comparative protection to their well-known stringency in respect of sanitation, municipal and personal.

VACCINATION IN HER MAJESTY’S NAVY.

Scarcely less striking is the failure of Vaccination in the Navy, though the practice is in no respect less rigidly enforced. In Article 1,076 of the Queen’s Regulations and Admiralty Instructions, it is prescribed :—

"1st.—All men and boys entering the service are to be re-vaccinated.

"2nd.—All men who have not been re-vaccinated between their first entry in the service and the age of 58, shall be re-vaccinated as soon as possible, however good their primary vaccination cicatrices may appear, or even should they present unmistakable evidence of having suffered from small-pox previous to that age.

"4th.—No person shall be considered re-vaccinated who has had the operation performed with lymph taken from the arm of a re-vaccinated person, but all persons so re-vaccinated shall again be vaccinated with lymph taken from the sources specified."

Mr. SIMON said of the Naval service in the Commons Committee, "we may look upon them as a completely protected class." In a well-known tract, published by the National Health Society of London, which has been extensively advertised and widely circulated, the following paragraph occurs :—

"Every soldier and sailor is re-vaccinated; the result is that small-pox is almost unknown in the army and navy, even amid surrounding epidemics."

But Mr. ERNEST HART, the Chairman of the Committee of the National Health Society, in the appendix to his book, The Truth about Vaccination, published in 1880, admits, that amongst this healthy, well fed, vaccinated, and re-vaccinated body—the British Navy— for 20 years, there was only one year (1876) in which there were no cases of small-pox amongst the Home Force, and in the year 1864, there were no fewer than 199 cases, and nine deaths! Nor have the sailors in Her Majesty’s service fared better with their safeguard when abroad. From the Blue Book Report on the Health of the Navy for the year 1881, in a total force of 44,400 officers and men, the death-rate from disease was 5.27 per thousand, amongst which there were 25 cases of small-pox, of which four were on the Home stations, five on the West Coast of Africa, nine on the East Indies, and seven on the China stations. The four cases of small-pox occurred on the "Royal Adelaide," and in addition, 19 cases of vaccinia are reported. These last are accounted for by special re-vaccination, carried out owing to small-pox being generally epidemic. On the Pacific Station, seven cases of vaccinia are recorded, and one on the West Coast of Africa. The nine cases of small-pox recorded on the East Indies Station occurred on the "Eclipse." The first case, that of a seaman, aged 31, proved to be’ one of severe confluent form, with high fever and delirium. The patient had been re-vaccinated two years before. He succumbed on the eleventh day of, the attack, The second case also proved fatal in eleven days; it was’ an able seaman, aged 27, who had been successfully re-vaccinated four years previously. Seven others were subsequently attacked, some of them severely, but all recovered. Of these it is stated, that three had not been vaccinated since childhood, though, considering the stringency of the Queen’s regulations before cited, it is hardly conceivable that they could have escaped re-vaccination on entering the service. The Lancel, for February 3rd, 1883, has an article under the heading "Health of the Navy," commenting on the Blue Book from which the details of these vaccine failures are extracted, but while alluding to cholera, enteric fever, and other diseases, makes no allusion whatever to these cases of post-vaccinal small-pox. This is an example of the characteristic methods adopted by the profession, when dealing with this important subject.

The following instructive letter from Mr. EUGENE BETTES, of Washington, U.S., shews that small-pox contagion pays no more respect to the vaccine charm, when used in the form of bovine virus, in the United States Navy, than to our own transmission of disease from arm to arm. It is reprinted from the Vaccination Inquirer :— "

    "In the Sanitary and Medical Reports for 5873-74, published by the Navy Department, there is an article by Dr. PILCHER, on the subject of ‘Variola in the United States Navy.’ Dr. PILCHER believes in Vaccination. His argument is this :—‘During the 26 years, 1845-70, there were introduced into receiving or sea-going vessels, 80 cases of small-pox without any extension of the disease, and 26 cases where the contagion was limited to one other party, which shews the benefit of primary Vaccination. In an unspecified number of cases the disease spread, attacking in one instance more than one-fifth of the entire crew, which shews the necessity for re-vaccination.’
    "I transcribe as briefly as possible some of the reports made by the ships’ surgeons:--
    "In the early part of 5857, variola broke out in the U.S. sloop of war Levant, then in the China Sea. There was a total of 28 cases, of which an unusually large number were confluent, in consequence of the cachectic condition of those attacked. Indeed, those only whose constitutional vigour had been impaired were affected, the disease manifesting no tendency to indiscriminate spreading among the healthy members of the crew.
   "In 1850, in the U.S. frigate Independence, with a ship’s company of 560 persons, there were 116 cases of small-pox, seven fatal. Fleet-surgeon WHELAN writes :—‘ The crew of this ship almost universally presented what are regarded as genuine vaccine marks. The protection, however, proved to be quite imperfect.’
    "Upon the U.S. steamship Jamestown, serving in Japanese waters, there occurred, in 1864, among a ship’s company of 212 persons, 31 cases of small-pox, with four deaths. The entire crew had been vaccinated after leaving the United States.
    "In 1870, sixty-one cases occurred on the United States steamship Franklin. The disease first appeared on a sailor with ‘an excellent vaccine scar.’ The officers and crew were immediately vaccinated with fresh vaccine matter obtained at Lisbon, this vaccination being the third one during the cruise. Nineteen days later, the second case occurred. The disease has been epidemic in many places in Europe during the past season, but I hoped our vaccinations would prevent trouble with it on board ship.
    "In a cruise of the North Carolina up the Mediterranean, she shipped at Norfolk a crew of 900 men, most of whom had been vaccinated, or had the small-pox, but were nevertheless twice vaccinated prior to the ship sailing, a third time at Gibraltar, and a fourth time at Port Mahon. Dr. HENDERSON, who reports these facts, states that notwithstanding this ultra Vaccination under such various circumstances of virus, climate, &c., 157 of the crew had varioloid.
    "The defence set up is, that the re-vaccinations were very rarely successful, owing to inferior virus; but in none of the above cases did the surgeon in charge suggest this explanation. Certainly the surgeon who wrote, ‘I hoped our Vaccinations would prevent trouble,’ did not refer to matter exceptionally inert.
    "EUGENE BETTES."
"Washington, U.S., August 1st, 1882."

By what methods the risk of these naval Vaccinations are minimised in some cases, may be told in the words of the Rev. ROBERT CAVEN, of Southampton, while stationed at Gosport, and communicated to the Anti- Vaccinator, December 2nd, 1871 :—" A member of my congregation, who goes to sea in one of the P. and O. boats, is also connected with the Naval Reserve. He was down at Portsmouth this summer to fulfil his term of service. While there, he met with a shipmate from Southampton, who told him that he would have to be re-vaccinated before he rejoined his ship. ‘And’ said he, ‘they vaccinate on the wrist now instead of the arm; and do you know what that is for? why, don’t you see, if the place mortifies, they have a, chance of saving your life by taking your arm off."

 VACCINATION IN PRISONS.

In answer to enquiries at the Home Office, as to Vaccination amongst prisoners, I am informed that the following are the only regulations which have been issued by the Prison Department :—

"STANDING ORDER No. 504.

    "PRISON DEPARTMENT,
    "Home Office, 54th of April, 1881.
"VACCINATION OF PENAL SERVITUDE CONVICTS IN LOCAL PRISONS :— The increase of small-pox in the general population having been brought under the notice of the Commissioners, it has been recommended that all persons sentenced to penal servitude, who do not present good marks of Vaccination, should be re-vaccinated before removal from Local Prisons to Convict Prisons. Medical Officers are therefore enjoined to carry this recommendation into effect.
    "By order of the Commissioners,
    "R. ANDERSON, Secretary."

    "STANDING ORDER No. 119.
    "PRISON DEPARTMENT.
    " Home Office, 11th of November, 1882.
"VACCINATION OF CHILDREN BORN IN PRISON :—The following instructions respecting vaccination of children born in prison, are, after consultation with the Local Government Board, issued for the guidance of Governors and Medical Officers. All such children are to be vaccinated as soon. after birth as the medical officer thinks it safe and desirable to perform the operation.
    "When, from any cause, a child remains unvaccinated at the time of the mother’s discharge, the vaccination paper which is left at the prison by the Registrar must be delivered to the mother, whose intended address, so far as is known at the prison, is to be communicated to the vaccination officer whose name appears on the outside of the notice.
"By order of the Commissioners,
"R. ANDERSON, Secretary."

That these regulations are often exceeded in practice, is generally allowed, and also that in this—as in certain, other departments—no marks are considered good enough to permit the convict to escape the ordeal when he enters prison, and I am informed that general re-vaccination is the rule. Some convicts have a double allowance of the state prophylactic to begin with, and many subsequent inflictions, as will be seen by the following narrative from, The Englishman, November 18th, 1882:—

Here a new trouble befel the ‘Claimant,’ for after he had been taken to the weighing-room, and there weighed by medical order, he was taken—with a crowd of other prisoners—to the infirmary, and there subjected to that dread and abomination of all prisoners—the vaccination process. The ‘Claimant’ was now vaccinated on both arms—probably on account of his bulk—Vaccination perhaps being the Pentonville Prison Medical Officer’s panacea for wasting debility, and when he returned to his place, in the rank of his half-naked vaccinated fellow-prisoners, after being "done,’ he was duly impressed—in a subdued whisper—with the necessity to ‘rub plenty ov salt an’ sliver inter th’ bloomin’ holes, when yer gits back ter yer cell, guv’ner, an’ yer’ll soon kill th’ nasty wacksination pison, or like yer’ll be as all th’ rest ov us bloomin’ ole lags is, an’ ‘ve nasty sores come out on yer hide, an’ if them bloomin’ sores once comes out, yer’ll never be clear on ‘em.’ [Salt is the convicts’ panacea for destroying the vitality of the vaccine virus, and is used by all prisoners under the idea that they will thereby be freed of those repulsive and painful sores which seem to be incurable in the convict prisons, as they certainly are when prisoners are released from prison.] Probably the rough and ready mode of inoculating one prisoner from the other may have something to do with these universal sores, and small-pox is now almost the regular annual visitant to the convict prisons, as proved by the now almost regular closing of these establishments for nine months out of each year to all visitors to the wretched prisoners. Outsiders will say ‘But the prison death-rate is exceptionally low?’ Yes, that part of the affair is ‘managed’ by the ‘Released by Medical Order’ system, now so much in vogue at all the prisons."

The official report of the Officer of Health for Leicester, for the year 1882, mentions that three cases of small-pox were sent to the Borough Small-pox Hospital from the prison, the ages being 24, 32, and 40, respectively. Sometimes an attempt has been made to vaccinate imprisoned anti-vaccinators. Mr. CHARLES W. NYE, of Chatham, lost two children thrrough Vaccination, and refusing to vaccinate his other children, he was served with thirteen summonses, between October 15th, 1869, and May 10th, 1881. In each case, the magistrate inflicted a fine with costs, and as these were not paid, the defendant was sent to prison. He suffered imprisonment five times for one child in about 12 months, and nine imprisonments in all. In December, 1870, while undergoing one of these incarcerations, the doctor told NYE that he must be vaccinated. NYE has furnished me with the following brief narrative of what occurred. "I replied to the doctor that I did not want to be vaccinated, and did not mean to be vaccinated. My blood was up, and it was only by the greatest effort that I restrained myself from knocking him down, and probably I should have done so had he not become scared and left me. He went off in such haste that the warder had to call after him to know whether I was to go to my proper cell. When I got to my cell the warder said to me, ‘NYE, NYE, whatever has caused you to have such an objection to Vaccination?’ and I could see that my determination had astonished him. I imagined I had only been put in my cell until they could obtain more assistance; and, as soon as the door was closed, I unhooked one of the hammock chains, with which I meant mischief as soon as the doctor came into the cell. He did not come, however, and I heard no more about being vaccinated while in prison." Mr. CANDLISH, M.P., brought this case before the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Vaccination in 1871.

VACCINATION IN LIFE ASSURANCE.

Out of 46 Life Assurance Companies having offices in the metropolis, 31 require information as to whether the proposed insurer has had small-pox or been vaccinated; the remaining 15 impose no qualification on the subject. One office asks, "How often has the proposer been vaccinated?" Another if successfully vaccinated? The replies form the basis of the contract, in most cases, and the point is very prominently expressed in their declarations. One office would not entertain a proposal where the applicant had had neither cow-pox nor smallpox. Other offices will pass unvaccinated proposers at an extra premium. Another company would endorse the policy of the unvaccinated insurer "void" if he died of smallpox. The following table will indicate the relative importance attaching to the imposition of Vaccination by the 31 offices, and will form a curious study for future students of the "barbarisms of the nineteenth century."

SUMMARY of the REPLIES of INSURANCE OFFICES as to Vaccination Requirements, Extra Premiums, &c.

Mr. DOVEY, Secretary of the Standard Lfe Assurance Company, in answer to an enquiry on the subject says:-- "Deaths seldom occur from small-pox amongst our policy-holders, and those of first-class companies, all of which I believe, make it an indispensable requirement, before accepting a life for assurance, that Vaccination is undergone."

It is nearly impossible for people belonging to the class. of policy-holders, to be seized with fatal small-pox, be they vaccinated or unvaccinated. In the heaviest year of the great Birmingham small-pox epidemic (1874) in which 189 unvaccinated deaths were recorded, only two of them were above 40 years old, and 147 were under 20 years old. In the succeeding year, 40 unvaccinated deaths were recorded, only one of which approached 40 years of age, and 33 were under 20. Mr. GEORGE VERNEY, of Kingston, a well-known insurance agent says, December 13th, 1882:--

"Against this Vaccination test I have protested that the requirement is unreasonable and unjust. Of course it will be abandoned when the people stoutly refuse to submit."

It is not a little curious that one of the offices requires to be informed whether the patient has been "cupped" or "bled." When a system of medical treatment has ceased to be fashionable, its effects in impairing and undermining the constitution cease to be concealed; and the writer ventures to prophesy that in the course of a few years a similar question will have to be answered as to Vaccination, and for similar, if not more cogent reasons. For instance, if the applicant has been vaccinated, the chances of permanent injury by the possible introduction of constitutional diseases will be an extra risk, to be discounted by an extra premium.

VACCINATION AMONGST EMIGRANTS.

Not a few opponents of Vaccination after undergoing prosecution for their medical heresy, have been driven like the Covenanters, Quakers, and Nonconformists of old, as fugitives to seek an asylum in the Colonies, or in the United States, hoping there to find that freedom from

persecution which was denied them at home. In many instances, it has been only an escape from Scylla to Charybdis, as the following regulations will shew. Mr. KENNAWAY, the Secretary to the Agent-General for New Zealand, writes, February 27th, 1883 :—

"Unless the intending emigrants receiving free or assisted passages have been vaccinated to the satisfaction of the inspecting medical man, it is necessary for them to be revaccinated before embarking."

Mr. DEERING, Secretary to the Government Emigration Department, for Australia, says, 22nd February, 1883:—

"I am directed to inform you that, so far as our emigrants are concerned, Vaccination is compulsory. I cannot enter into any controversy as to the utility or inutility of the practice."

The Agents for the Union Line to the Cape do not enforce Vaccination, but strongly recommend it. Messrs. RENNIE, SON, & Co., 6, East India Avenue, E.C., state that:--

"Owing to small-pox having been so prevalent at the Cape Colony lately, we think it a necessity for intending emigrants to that part to be vaccinated."

The following experience is from a correspondent of the Anti-Compulsory Vaccination Reporter for December, 1882, shewing how these ordinances work:--

"A WARNING TO INTENDING EMIGRANTS.
"To the Editor of the Reporter. (A.-C. V.)
   "CHELTENHAM.

"MADAM,—Just a line or two to all my anti-vaccination friends through the Reporter. Time will not permit me to answer letters to each of them. We are just about to set sail, and I desire to thank all those who have assisted me, and also those who have kindly sent me presents and photographs. I cannot but advise anti-vaccinators not to emigrate with Government help, but rather to pay their own passages; and go out free men and women. It is a terribly difficult task to escape Vaccination, Scores have had to submit to the vile rite. Farewell to you all.
"From yours ever truly,"GEORGE KIDSON."
"The Duchess of Argyle,
"Plymouth Harbour, November 15th, 1882."

The infant child of Mr. H. L. WATTS, was vaccinated when starting for New Zealand, on the "Hurunu." The narrator thinks it singular that out of five children vaccinated at the same time, three died, two on the voyage, and one after landing, but whether from Vaccination, it is not clear. That Vaccination has a depressing effect on the constitution, and that it predisposes to other diseases, cannot be denied by those who have looked into the subject. It is not, however, under the aegis of Monarchical or Colonial institutions that Vaccination is enforced with the greatest rigour, but under the Republican Government of the. United States of America, a country where the largest individual liberty is promised to all who there ,seek an asylum from intolerance at home. The Secretary of the Monarch Line, in reply to an inquiry, writes: "The laws of the United States require all third-class passengers entering that country to be re-vaccinated, provided it has not been previously done." We shall see presently what latitude is allowed, and what is the actual practice. Messrs. GUYON and Co.’s agent writes: "Passengers arriving in New York are required by the Emigration Commissioners to have been vaccinated, or to have received certificates from the surgeon, of their being protected, by previous, Vaccination, and, failing these, the passengers may be detained at New York until vaccinated." This, it appears, is in accordance with a law passed by the United States Congress in 1882. Mr. THOMAS SCANLIN, of the National Steamship Company, says :—" It is most desirable that all steerage passengers should be vaccinated before leaving home." The following is a copy of the printed instructions for the guidance of intending emigrants:--

"IMPORTANT NOTICE.—Passengers about to embark for America will please note that, by being vaccinated, or by obtaining a certificate of Vaccination from a proper medical authority, previous to their departure, much trouble and serious detention may be avoided on their arrival."

As the vaccine service is paid for per capita, it is not surprising that—though it is well known the emigrants all come from countries where Vaccination is systematically and relentlessly enforced—a large number should be found needing a repetition of the operation. The National Board of Health reports, that of 15,999 steerage steamer passengers, medically inspected in 1882, 4,378 were found imperfectly protected, and were duly vaccinated. The following narrative from the Massachusetts Eclectic Medical Journal for November, 1882, shews how the Jennerian rite is performed :—

"Dr. MERKEL sends us the following concerning what he saw of the working of Compulsory Vaccination among emigrants. It would appear from it that there are perils other than those of the sea which menace the emigrant. Dr. MERKEL writes :—

"‘I left Bremen on the "Neckar," of the North German Lloyd line, in the midst of a severe rain-storm, which was accompanied by a strong wind. Besides 110 cabin passengers, the "Neckar" carried between 700 and 800 in the steerage. The United States law provides that every emigrant, without regard to age or physical condition, shall be vaccinated within 24 hours after leaving the foreign port. Many of those on board were exceedingly ill, and to any one who has ever suffered the pangs of sea-sickness, it will be apparent that that was not a favorable nor a proper time for Vaccination. But it must be done, for the law is clear and peremptory; there is no evading it, for on arrival at New York, all those who cannot shew a certificate from the ship’s surgeon are consigned to Blackwell’s Island.

"‘During the three days following our departure from Bremen, Vaccination was the order of the day in the steerage. I was enticed thither by curiosity, and what I saw there was suggestive, to say the least, to me, and may be of interest to you. The surgeon sat on a box in the store room, lancet in hand, and around him were huddled as many as could be crowded into the confined space, old and young, children screaming, women crying; each with an arm bare and a woe-begone face, and all lamenting the day they turned their steps toward "the land of the free." The lymph used was of unknown origin, kept in capillary glass tubes, from whence it was blown into a cup into which the lancet was dipped. No pretence of cleaning the lancet was made; it drew blood in very many instances, and it was used upon as many as 276 during the first day. I inquired of the surgeon if he had no fear of inoculating disease, or whether he examined as to health or disease before vaccinating. He replied that he could not stop for that; besides, no choice in the matter was left him. The law demanded the Vaccination of each and every one, and he must comply with it or be subjected to a fine. I thought it a pitiful sight, and am persuaded that could the gentlemen, through whose instrumentality the law was enacted, see what I saw of the manner in which it was carried into effect, they would be as zealous in seeking its repeal. As conducted, the law is an outrage, and no one can estimate the number of healthy, innocent children, as well as adults, who are inoculated with syphilis or other foul disease, on every ship bringing steerage passengers to our shores.

Dr. JOHN H. RAUCH, Supervising Inspector to the United States National Board of Health, Washington, D.C., in his report of the emigrant vaccine service, says:

"A former surgeon of an immigrant steamer informs me that it is the usual custom of steamship surgeons to get a large supply of vaccine virus at one time, and use it until it is gone, however long." This will serve to account for the serious and fatal cases of septic poisoning following Vaccination, so common in the United States, according to the information communicated by correspondents, and also for the various efforts now being made in several States to get the Vaccination Laws abolished. The New York Times for June 19th, 1880, records a touching story, sworn to by a German emigrant, named ALBERT SCHMAECKEL. He arrived, with his wife AMELIA, in New York by the steamship "Lessing." The child not being well, both the mother and child were sent to the Hospital on Ward’s Island. While there, the mother and child were vaccinated, according to the regulations for immigrants; erysipelas followed Vaccination, and terminated fatally to both the sufferers; and when the husband and father called to see his wife and child he found both dead.

The following graphic narrative is from the pen of a highly intelligent resident of Nottingham, who after being subjected to judicial penalties in England for refusing to vaccinate his child, emigrated to the United States last April :—

                "BROOKLYN, NEW YORK, May 7th, 1883.
    "DEAR SIR,—I found the Vaccination tyranny much more than sentiment on board the Adriatic. Aboard-ship, as everywhere, it has attained terrible proportions, which makes it probable that, in the near future, it will become The Great Terror that shall ‘cause that as many as will not worship the image of the beast shall be killed,’ and that ‘no man may buy or sell save he that has the mark of the beast.’
    "The first intimation I had that Vaccination was a requisite for free travel in America was an ‘Important Notice’ on the stairway to the effect that passengers not provided with certificates of Vaccination were liable to be detained in quarantine on arrival, and that the ship’s medical officer was prepared to give certificates to those unprovided on showing marks of successful Vaccination.
    "In a few days, I heard of this ship’s medical officer magnifying his office down among the women and children. I conversed with one young woman who had submitted to the great ordinance, and, after characterising the whole business as the most idiotic folly of the times, I begged of her to suck the poison out of her arm. But many hours had elapsed, and the endeavour failed. Day by day she had to carry her burden of pain until she landed. Whether she is now rejoicing in enhanced health as a consequence of the small-pox proofing process, or whether she is suffering from the weary illness that is often its ‘accident’ I have no means of knowing.

"The bulk of the passengers were Irish, German, and Welsh ; there were very few English. I held many small indignation meetings, and did all in my power to enlighten them as to the filth, fraud, and folly of Vaccination. I trust I did a little good, and sowed a little seed that may some day and somewhere produce fruit.

"I was anxious to know to what extent the immigration Vaccination law was enforced at New York, and had a chat on the subject with the chief steward. His information was terrifying. Said he, ‘When we get to New York the doctor comes aboard, with half-a-dozen policemen, and you have to be vaccinated.’ ‘But,’ said I, ‘suppose you refuse to be vaccinated, what then?’ ‘Then they’ll sling you into the tender, and clap you in jail till you submit.’ ‘But I won’t be vaccinated. I’ll stay out of New York for ever first.’ He replied, ‘No use; you‘d have to be. Five of our crew, once, refused to be done; but they just put ‘em into quarantine and kept ‘em there until they came to. They might as well have been done first as last; they only delayed the vessel.’
    "I tell you, I felt bad after this recital, and came to the conclusion that America was closed against the unvaccinated anti-vaccinator, and that he was fast falling into the condition of the American negro-slave who was hunted down everywhere by everybody.
    "One morning it was rumoured that the doctor was coming to examine the passengers, and I went with two friends to the surgery to state our objections. I told him that we had been vaccinated, if that fact would let us pass without further trouble, we could satisfy him; but if not, vaccinated we would never be. Like most doctors, he was without capacity to understand our conscientious objections, and the degradation involved in submission to the rite. He curtly told us the law was not his; it was the United States law. He should come forward at two o’clock, and if we shewed him that we had been vaccinated, he would give us a certificate, and, if not, he would vaccinate us if we chose; if not, we must take the risk of passing the doctor at the port. It mattered nothing to him.
    "About two o’clock there was a great commotion for’ard. Such a stripping of clothes, rolling up of sleeves, and searching for ‘marks.’ Some were craning their necks over their shoulders in a half-hopeless search after obliterated or invisible scars; some calling in the help of a neighbour to make them out; and some raising an excited discussion as to whether an indentation was a vaccination mark, or forgotten boil, and going into an ecstasy of satisfaction when they had settled it was exactly what was wanted.
    Others, in despair of vaccination marks, recollected that they had had small-pox, and set up a search for pox-marks. Some, after a protracted quest for marks, vaccine or variolous, put on their coats sadly, with the air of criminals about to be hanged. It was a sight to make men blush with shame for the devilish superstition that has taken possession of the Christian civilization of the nineteenth century.
    "By-and-by came the doctor in his gold-laced cap, with his bottle of ‘lymph,’ pure from the sores of children or heifer’s buttock, and commenced operations. First a rope was stretched from a post, and held by two stewards in a horse-shoe form, and into this enclosure passed, one by one, the victims of an insane medical legislation, and bared their arms to the Medical Ignoramus, who stood on the other side. If he there saw the orthodox scars, he forthwith bestowed a ticket like this:--

Which further had this exhortation on the back:-- 

"If a poor wretch could not show vaccine or pock marks, he got no ticket, and was asked whether he would be vaccinated, or risk being stopped at landing. All preferred the first alternative as the lesser evil. The doctor, dipping his lancet in the bottle of mystery, wiped it on a spot on the arm, and cut and cross-cut the skin, and then, after rapidly stretching and closing the incisions with his thumbs, gave the wretch his ticket and passed him on. Such was the ordinance of Vaccination—a sight not to be forgotten. A crowd of hundreds passing forward to prostrate their conscience or manhood, or lack of them, at the shrine of the most outrageous humbug of these latter days! A mixed crowd of big and little, fat and lean, dirty and clean, reputable and disreputable, sober and drunken, healthy and diseased, all ground down to the dead level of VACCINATED. There was nothing in common among them save their degradation, and, as I thought, the most degraded of the lot was the Vaccinator. How a man with any sense of decency and the congruity of things could, for mere pay, consent to the folly that the individuals of such a heterogenous crowd were all alike liable to small-pox, and were all alike saved by his performance, passes my understanding. It is hard to believe in a man’s sincerity in view of such absurdity; and yet he may be sincere. When a lie is taught, and still more when a lie is practised, it confounds the intellect, and is ultimately taken for the truth of truth.
    "I am fain to believe that not much harm was done to those vaccinated. After the operation, there was a mighty scuttling off into secret corners, with sucking and spitting. Happily I had a store of borax, and dispensed it liberally with energetic advice. Anyhow, I heard little of the Vaccination ‘taking.’ Perhaps the ‘matter’ was not good, but it mattered not.
                        "Yours truly, "F. SCRIMSHAW."
"To Mr. WILLIAM TEBB."

At the International Anti-Vaccination Congress held at Berne, Switzerland, at the end of September, 1883, a deputation from the Congress, consisting of Dr. H. OIDTMANN, Professor ADOLF VOGT, DR. HUBERT BOENS, Colonel EARLE, and Mr. W. TEBB, waited upon the American Minister, Mr. CRAMER, to call his attention to the cruelty, injury, and injustice caused by the Vaccination of emigrants landing in the various ports of the United States. Amongst the numerous serious and fatal cases cited, was one sent to this Congress by Dr. T. DWIGHT STOW, a Member of the Massachusetts Legislature. EDWARD JONES, of Brierly Hill, Staffordshire, England, now residing on Fall River, Massachusetts, was vaccinated, June 13th, 1883, on the steamship "Missouri," by Surgeon ARTHUR GREENE. The operation was followed by a terrible erysipelatous inflammation and swelling of the arm, neck, and hand, pains in the muscles and bones, vomiting, and diarrhoea. At the point of insertion a large ulcer formed, and eczematous and pustular eruptions appeared on the body. He has been incapacitated for work for three months, and having a family of three persons, has suffered great hardship in consequence, for which no compensation is possible. Three of his compagnons de voyage were afflicted in the like manner by the same operation. A photograph which accompanied Dr. STOW’s medical report, representing the sufferer when desquamation had already begun, was shewn. Mr. CRAMER thanked the delegates for supplying him with the important facts and statements. He thought the Vaccination Law complained of was a State Law, passed by the New York Legislature. He requested that a Memorial, in writing, might be drawn up and sent to him, signed by the President of the Congress, setting forth the painful particulars to which he had just listened, which he promised to bring before his Government.

Vaccination of immigrants into California has for some time been energetically practised on the Chinese, who are first made safe on entering the vessel, and afterwards on leaving it; their competition in the labour market being feared. A writer in a leading Continental Review has lately observed that it is dislike of the immigration of artizans and labourers from Europe, and dread of their competition at reduced wages, that has suggested to the acute trades-unionists of the United States this method of rendering emigration to America unpalatable to foreign workmen and their families.

 CONCLUSION.

So acutely is the yoke of this vaccine coercion felt, that numerous methods are adopted to evade the Vaccination ordinances. Mothers make a practice of going from home for their confinement, registering their children’s births in the visited parish, and afterwards returning home; and in this way they escape the vaccination officer. Thousands of children in the metropolis, particularly those of very poor parentage, avoid registration in order to escape the risks of Vaccination. Certificates of postponement are frequently obtained, until the case is forgotten, and well-to-do but less scrupulous parents "square" the matter with the vaccination officer. Cases of this kind have been exposed in the police court. But by far the larger portion of the objectors are cowed into Vaccination through fear of prosecution or loss of situation, and the want of moral courage to withstand the influences operating against them.

An Edinburgh correspondent writes, October 16th, 1882:—

"A distinguished civil servant in London told me lately that, though opposed to Vaccination, he had submitted from fear of dismissal from the service. As I also have the misfortune to be in the Civil Service, it is possible that my first fine may be my last, and submission may be necessary for the sake of a livelihood."

The system which I have here attempted to describe, oppressive as it is, does not satisfy our vaccinationists. Dr. E. WHITTLE, of Liverpool, at the recent Social Science Congress, held at Liverpool, while admitting that "primary Vaccination alone, without re-vaccination, was a delusion and a snare," recommended that "all public servants of any kind whatever should be required to be re-vaccinated, on pain of disqualification for office." Dr. COLLINGRIDGE, of ‘the port of London, goes a step further, and, in agreement with Sir JAMES PAGET’S ideal of a "permanent morbid condition of the blood," maintains that "until re-vaccination becomes general, with thoroughly efficient annual Vaccination, he saw little chance of avoiding serious outbreaks of small-pox ; "—a truly pleasant prospect for those who submit themselves to be regulated by medical experts: and it is not to be supposed that the vaccination of 36 millions of people once a year will be performed gratuitously. From the foregoing illustrations it will be seen how wide-spread are the ramifications of the Jennerian ‘rite in our social system. The State attacks unfortunate, ill-conditioned babies, in various Metropolitan Workhouses, at seven days old and under, with an artificial disease of a very serious nature, always producing grave constitutional disturbances, before (as one of the Metropolitan Journals puts it) "the poor thing has recovered the shock of being born." The State coerces the parents of other babies to submit to a similar operation under threats of judicial penalties, at an earlier age and consequently with greater fatalities than in any other country in Europe. We insist upon revaccination of public servants, civil and military, under pain of deprivation of employment,*

*Dr. CHARLES T. PEARCE, in p, 9 of "Vital Statistics " (1882) refers to a case where the shopmen and girls in a West.End Drapery Establishment, in London, were syphilised by Vaccination enforced upon them by their employer, under pain of dismissal if they refused.

and are unwilling to allow the hard-pressed emigrants to leave our shores by means of State help, without a similar imposition. Misled by these pernicious examples of class legislation in favour of the medical profession, establishments all over the country have instituted similar ordinances. Employers of labour, like the London and North Western Railway Company, in their extensive works at Crewe, and the Army and Navy Co-operative Stores in London, are taking the lead in insisting on the quackery of this medical qualification for employment. Yet to those who will take the trouble to investigate the facts, it will be obvious, that Vaccination affords no protection whatever against small-pox, and so, far from being the benign operation which its advocates claim, it is often an excitant of grave and fatal maladies, far worse than the disease it professes to guard us against. One of the first statisticians of Europe, Dr. GEORGE KOLB, of Munich, writes, January 22nd, 1882:--

"From childhood I was trained to look upon the cow-pox as an absolute and unqualified protective, and I have, from my earliest remembrance, believed in it more strongly than in any clerical tenet or ecclesiastical dogma. Its numerous and acknowledged failures did not shake my faith, I attributed them either to the carelessness of the operator or the badness of the lymph. In course of time, the question of vaccine compulsion came before the Reichstag, when a medical friend supplied me with a mass of pro-vaccination statistics, in his opinion conclusive and unanswerable. This awoke the statistician within me. On inspection, I found the figures were delusive; and a closer examination left no shadow of doubt in my mind that the so-called statistical array of proof was a complete failure. My investigations were continued, but with a similar result. For instance, in the Kingdom of Bavaria, into which the cow-pox was introduced in 1807, and where for a long time no one, except the newly-born, escaped Vaccination, there were, in the epidemic of 1871, no less than 30,742 cases of small-pox, of whom 29,429 had been vaccinated, as is shewn in the documents of the State Department. When, with these stern proofs before us of the inability of Vaccination to protect, we reflect upon the undeniable and fearful mischief which the operator so often inflicts upon his victims, the conclusion forces itself upon us that the State is not entitled either in justice or reason to put in force an enactment so directly subversive of the great principle of personal right. In this matter, State compulsion is, in my opinion, utterly unjustifiable."

These statements are fully confirmed by the results of Vaccination in England, as the following figures shew :—

Vaccination was made compulsory by an Act of Parliament in the year 1853 ; again in 1867; and still more stringent in 1871. Since 1853, we have had three epidemics of small-pox, each being more severe than the one preceding.

LONDON.—The Registrar-General, in his Annual Summary for the year 1880, tabulates the small-pox mortality of London for the last 30 years as follows

The same Government Returns shew that in the years 1871-2, in England and Wales, 5,817 children died of small-pox under one year old, when the prophylaxy of Vaccination is alleged to be strongest. London, it is said, is one of the most thoroughly vaccinated cities in England, the returns shewing 95 per cent. of successful vaccinations. How, then, are the continuous outbreaks of small-pox accounted for?

The foregoing figures are not disputed. Dr. CHARLES CAMERON, Dr. RENNER, Dr. DRYSDALE, Dr. GEORGE WYLD, and other vaccine champions claim that the failures are due to the degeneracy of the vaccine lymph, and they therefore demand the introduction of calf lymph. No such failures (they allege) attended the performance of Vaccination in the early part of the century. But Mr. WILLIAM WHITE, in his masterly historical survey of the introduction and development of inoculation and Vaccination, has shewn that this allegation is totally at variance with fact. Dr. WILLIAM ROWLEY, a member of the University of Oxford, and of the Royal College of Physicians in London, Physician Extraordinary to Her Majesty’s Lying-in Hospital, Public Lecturer on the Theory and Practice of Medicine, &c., wrote, in 1805:--

"Out of 504 persons vaccinated in England, 75 died from the consequences, and almost all these had the small-pox—some sooner, some later— after Vaccination. There is no question here of supposition or calculation of probability—it is truth. It is evidence which seems to speak, and leaves no doubt. Now, if in the space of seven or eight years (from 1798 to 1805) Vaccination has shewn itself so grievous to society, what may we not fear for the future ? It will scarcely be imagined that the facts mentioned are all that might be cited to prove the inefficiency and dangers of the practice. Alas! it is too certain that on all sides we meet with new instances of maladies such as those already detailed. Consider England, France, Germany, Italy, and other countries where Vaccination has been received; penetrate into the interior of houses, into the bosoms of families; interrogate fathers and mothers, and you will be surprised, shocked, and even enraged, to see, not only tolerated, but maintained, a murderous practice, which carries desolation into families, and compromises the reputation of those who protect or practise it."

The Committee of the Royal Jennerian Society, composed of the strongest and most determined supporters of Vaccination, were compelled to admit, in their first Report, issued 2nd January, 1806, that a few cases had been brought before them of persons having the smallpox who had apparently passed through the cow-pox in the regular way. In the same year, the Royal College of Surgeons issued 1,100 circulars to its members, asking their experience concerning the advantages or disadvantages of vaccine inoculation, to which only 426 answers were received, in which it was admitted that 56 cases of small-pox had followed Vaccination, three deaths, 66 cases of eruptions, and 24 bad arms. These, however, were carefully suppressed. Writing to JAMES MOORE, in 1810, JENNER said:—

"When I found Dr. WOODVILLE about to publish his pamphlet relative to the eruptive cases at the Small-pox Hospital, I entreated him, in the strongest terms, both by letter and conversation, not to do a thing that would so much disturb the progress of Vaccination."—Life Jenner, vol. ii., p. 374.

But the most startling evidences of the earlier failures of Vaccination, and its mischievous results on the public health, will be found in the contemporary literature of that day, particularly in the medical organs published during the first decade of the century. In the eighth volume of the Medical Observer, an able journal published in 1810, and conducted by an association of practical physicians, will be found recorded the particulars of 535 cases of persons having small-pox after Vaccination, with the names of the infected persons, and an index pointing to the authorities. Also similar details concerning 97 fatal cases of small-pox after Vaccination, and 150 cases of the communication of cow-pox diseases, together with the names and addresses of ten medical men, including two Professors of Anatomy, who had suffered in their own families from Vaccination. Referring to these remarkable witnesses, Dr. MACLEAN observes:--

"Although numerous, they are few in comparison to what might be produced It will be thought incumbent on the vaccinators to come forward and disprove the numerous facts decisive against Vaccination here stated on unimpeachable authority, or make the amende honorable by a manly recantation. But experience forbids us to expect any such fair and magnanimous proceeding, and we may be assured that under no circumstances will they abandon so lucrative a practice until the practice abandons them."

Further on Dr. MACLEAN says:--

"Very few deaths from cow-pox have appeared in the Bills of Mortality, owing to the means which have been used for suppressing a knowledge of them. Neither were deaths, diseases, and failures transmitted in great abundance from the country, not because they did not happen, but because some practitioners were interested in not seeing them, and others who did see them were afraid of announcing what they knew. Of 1,100 surgeons who were written to on the subject by the College of Surgeons, only 426 replied. It is not difficult to infer what were the opinions of the majority who were silent."

The following candid view of the question is from the pen of one of the wisest physicians of his day, Sir HENRY HOLLAND:--

From an Essay on the Present Questions regarding Vaccination. By HENRY HOLLAND, M.D., F.R.S., &c., Physician Extraordinary to the Queen. London, 1839.

    "The questions already stated bring us to those which regard the completeness of Vaccination as a preventive remedy, the duration of its protecting power, and the changes its virus may undergo by long use and frequent transmission—the most momentous by far of all, the inquiries affecting the subject.
    "The events of the last to or 15 years have forced them strongly upon us, while apparently at the same time preparing evidence for their final determination. Not only in Great Britain, but throughout every part of the globe from which we have records, we find that small-pox has been gradually increasing again in frequency as an epidemic, affecting a larger proportion of the vaccinated, and inflicting greater mortality in its results. I do not enter into any detail of these facts, as they are now generally admitted. Even while writing these remarks, fresh testimonies occur to my notice, coming from different sources. We can no longer deny the likelihood that the protection given by Vaccination is unequal in different cases, or that it may be lessened or lost by time. Experience has here confirmed a presumption, which some ventured very early to entertain, and which, indeed, was sanctioned, prior to experience, by various considerations.
    "The early enthusiasm for the great discovery of JENNER swept those doubts away; and they returned only tardily, and under the compulsion of facts And though more palpable at one time than another according to the greater or less prevalence of epidemic causes, yet every succeeding year has multiplied them, and every statement from other countries has attested their truth.
    "The circumstances, of late years, have greatly changed the aspect of all that relates to this question. It is no longer expedient, in any sense to argue for the present practice of Vaccination as a certain or permanent preventive of small-pox. The truth must be told as it is, that the earlier anticipations on this point have not been realized. And if fairly told, with the just conclusions annexed to it, the result is likely to be far better than can arise from a lingering dispute on grounds no longer tenable, even by the most zealous in the cause.
    "Whether . . . . the small-pox may ever be wholly eradicated is a very doubtful question, and the probability is on the negative side."

It is well-known that ‘Vaccination was made compulsory by Parliament in England, at the instance of Lord LYTTELTON, through the activity and persistency of Dr. SEATON, Secretary to an obscure association of a very few medical men, calling themselves the Epidemiological Society, who issued a report on the state of small-pox and Vaccination in England and Wales, and other countries, dated 26th March, 1853, in which no mention whatever is made of the failures and mischiefs arising from the practice recorded by any of these early writers. All adverse evidence is rigorously excluded, and the unsupported testimony of these vaccinal propagandists has been actually accepted by Parliament as though mere assertion were scientific proof! Their report says:--

"We are ourselves satisfied, and it is the concurrent and unanimous testimony of nearly 2,000 medical men, with whom, as we have already stated, we have been in correspondence, that Vaccination is a perfectly safe and efficient prophylactic against the disease."

In singular contradiction to this claim, about the date of this report an item appeared in the Lancet, dated 21st of May, 1853, which must have caused some feelings of discomfiture and chagrin to the Epidemiological Society. It says:--

"In the public mind extensively, and, to a more limited extent, in the profession itself, doubts are known to exist as to the efficacy, or eligibility, of Vaccination. The failures of the operation have been numerous and discouraging."

And the same medical authority, after a further experience of nearly 20 years, says, January 21st, 1871:--

"From the early part of the century, cases of small-pox after Vaccination have been increasing, and now amount to four-fifths of cases."

And this is the "perfectly efficient prophylactic" which Parliament, relying upon the anonymous authors of this report, forces upon the people of the United Kingdom, under pains and penalties!

The only absolute protection remaining to the once triumphant vaccinators, with their infallible safeguard, is the case of the nurses at the small-pox hospitals. This is the last fortress of the Jennerians, who will not now guarantee perfect security to any person who has not accepted the position of nurse, and lives in what they describe as an "atmosphere of concentrated infection," and the inference remains that, for an absolute protection obtainable only by hospital nurses, the Government have paid £30,000 to JENNER, and are now paying about £120,000 a year out of the poor-rates to the medical profession.

The Times, through its medical editor, has at length surrendered the claim of Vaccination as a preventive, and in a leading article, December 15th, 1880, which appeared after the report of the proceedings at the International Anti-Vaccination Congress held at Paris, in 1880, says :— "The operation might be recommended or enforced, not as a means of preventing small-pox, but as a means of preventing mortality from it when it occurs."

Unfortunately for this theory, although no official registration of births and deaths was kept until 1838, the mortality of small-pox patients in both England and France was tabulated, to some extent, in the last century, and, by a comparison of the results with the mortality under the later Jennerian dispensation, we are enabled to estimate its value. The following table has been prepared, after careful investigation, by Mr. ALEXANDER WHEELER, of Darlington

    This Table has two important bearings :—
    1. It shews that before the introduction of Vaccination, the percentage of deaths from small-pox was no higher than it is at present. And, inasmuch as the deaths in the second division include a large majority of vaccinated persons, demonstration is afforded that Vaccination has had no effect in diminishing the percentage of its mortality.
    2.That smallpox as treated now, and small-pox as treated by the medical men of the 18th century, is the same unmodified disease.
    It exacts the same ratio of victims to cases, runs the same course, and is as fatal now as then; and any division by marks, of patients suffering from an eruptive fever, which yields results disproved by the general result, is unscientific, misleading, and erroneous.

 To the facts here presented no answer has been given, nor do we believe any is possible. Vaccination, according to the highest pro-vaccination authorities, can now only be offered as a mitigant of small-pox. That it is a hazardous operation, frequently attended with injurious, and occasionally with fatal results, has tardily and reluctantly been allowed by the Commissioners entrusted with the Local Government Board Inquiry at Norwich. That it causes an unspeakable amount of misery and injustice must be obvious, when the number of vaccination prosecutions are taken, into account, amounting now to about 5,000 annually; the number of convictions in 1882 according to the Official Return of Judicial Penalties being 2,728. An epitome of the chief points against Compulsory Vaccination will be found in the following resolutions agreed to by the Executive Committee of the International Anti-Vaccination League, at the close of the Congress held in Paris, in December, 1880, at which delegates representing France, Belgium, Holland, Prussia, Würtemburg, Switzerland, England, and the United States were present:--

FIRST.—That small-pox epidemics do not increase the general death-rate; that when small-pox is rife there is less typhoid fever, scarlet fever, measles, whooping cough, and other zymotic diseases; and that, generally speaking, the total mortality increases as small-pox mortality diminishes.

SECOND.—That the diminution of small-pox mortality at the beginning of the present century could not have been due to Vaccination, as JENNER’s discovery was but very little practised. When that result was claimed for it, not more than 1 1/2 per cent, of the entire population in England were vaccinated, and in 1812 less than one per cent. of the population on the Continent. The diminution of small-pox was mainly due to the cessation of small-pox inoculation, and small-pox mortality diminished when the disease ceased to be propagated.

THIRD.—That the official returns shew that since Vaccination has been rigorously enforced, the rate of mortality from epidemic small-pox has increased.

FOURTH.—That the small-pox hospital returns, both in Europe and America, prove that Vaccination has neither prevented nor mitigated the severity of the disorder. The observations of REES, JURIN, DUVILLARD, etc., shew that the rate of fatality per cent, of those attacked before JENNER’S time was "one in six." The cases on which this result was based being many thousands. Recent Hospital statistics shew that the fatality to-day is still "one in six," the cases being more numerous, and the majority of them vaccinated. The disease is therefore unchecked and unchanged as regards fatality.

FIFTH.—That since Vaccination has been rendered obligatory, infantile syphilis (under one year old) has been increased in England, according to a Parliamentary return, dated February 25th, 1880, from 472 per million of births in 1847, to 1,736 per million in 1877, or fourfold; and that other inoculable diseases, such as pyaemia, scrofula, erysipelas, and bronchitis, were also augmented in infants. In England, the increase of inoculable diseases was 20 per cent., notwithstanding an expenditure of 200 millions sterling since 1850 in sanitary works. Another Parliamentary return (No. 443, Session 1877) demonstrates that 25,000 babies are yearly sacrificed by diseases excited by Vaccination.

SIXTH—That from the exceeding difficulty of finding a case of spontaneous cow-pox, the vaccinating profession cannot possess a standard of purity in lymph; and that no analysis, or microscopic examination, or medical experience, can enable a vaccinator to distinguish pure from impure lymph, nor can the appearance of the vesicle of the vaccinifer be relied upon to indicate freedom from taint of syphilitic or other disease. A subject highly syphilised can shew vaccine vesicles, according to Dr. WARLOMONT, "perfectly irreproachable" in appearance.

SEVENTH.—That many diseases to which animals are liable, and particularly tubercle, are transmissible by means of so-called Animal Vaccination to man, according to Veterinary Surgeons, and that the great increase in Consumption in Europe was probably owing to this cause.

EIGHTH.—Dr. H. OIDTMANN, of Aix la Chapelle, has proved by official returns from the towns of Cologne, Dusseldorf, Duren, Elberfeld, Lieghitz, Treves, Wesel, and other places, that Vaccination does not afford even a temporary protection against small-pox, but on the contrary, on the outbreaks of small-pox, there is large and constant priority amongst those attacked, of the vaccinated and re-vaccinated, over those who have escaped Vaccination.

LASTLY.—That in view of the confusion of opinion which prevails in every medical assembly amongst the so-called authorities, whenever the subject of Vaccination is discussed, it is unwise, impolitic, unjust, and tyrannical to enforce Vaccination; that such enforcement retards all improvement in the treatment, and all discoveries for the prevention of small-pox; and that all Compulsory Legislation with regard to Vaccination ought to be repealed.

Forty-five years ago, the cry throughout the country of the reformers who were trying to get the imposts on corn abolished, was that "thousands of women and children were starving for want of that bread which the Corn Laws kept out of the land." The cry of the anti-vaccinator— which is neither less mournful, nor less true—is that thousands of children are crying for the infantine health which nature offers, but which professional interest does not permit them to enjoy. They may be born of healthy parentage, yet they must be exposed to suffering and possible death, through this system of universal State blood-poisoning: and Rachels are weeping throughout the land because their hearths are made desolate.

As in the case of the Corn Laws, so in the case of the Vaccination Acts: the cause of this widespread misery can only be repealed by persistent and determined agitation. The question is of vital and national importance, and should be considered irrespective of sect or party, for- no party holds a monopoly of sympathy for the victims of cruelty and injustice, and every one who has witnessed the operation of the system which works such widespread evil, should resolve to give Parliament no rest until this pernicious legislation is repealed.

The popularity of Vaccination has disappeared The practice has been unable to face free discussion, and the only support of vaccinal tyranny, in the present day, is the dead weight of State-officialism, and the advocacy of an interested professional trades-unionism. The SCIENCE which occupies itself with providing substitutes for Municipal and Personal Cleanliness is fore-doomed to failure.

[Vaccination]  [Smallpox]