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. END

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