TESTIMONIES
OF
MEDICAL AUTHORITIES
ON
VACCINATION
LONDON SOCIETY FOR THE ABOLITION OF
COMPULSORY VACCINATION
DR. SQUIRRELL, of the London Small-Pox Hospital, a Contemporary of JENNER,
Opposed vaccination on the ground that we have already too many maladies; that it affords no security against small pox; and that it was frequently followed by injurious consequences, in support of which conclusions he instanced thirty-nine cases.
DR. PEARSON, 1799.
This intimate friend and coadjutor of JENNER, in a letter to him, describes the eruptions in the vaccinated patients in London. "You will be astonished at my talking of eruptions, but it now appears in DR. Woodville’s cases, that as many have eruptions on the body as have them only in the parts inoculated. I inoculated an infant yesterday in Dr. WOODVILLE’S presence, from a patient ill of the cow-pox with eruptions on his body to the amount of two or three hundred . . . . On telling DR. WOODVILLE that I had been anxious about your publishing the use of the caustic, he replied, ‘That would have damned the whole business.’ Be assured that, if the practice [of vaccination] cannot be introduced without the caustic, it will never succeed with the public."—Life of Jenner by Baron,, i. 313, 315.
JOHN BIRCH, Surgeon Extraordinary to the Prince of Wales, and Surgeon to St. Thomas’s Hospital, 1804-7.
I have thought it a duty to publish my answer to the questions of the College of Surgeons, and my letter to the College of Physicians. In the last of these I have adduced no less than seven cases of death caused by vaccination. I could add more, but the cases adduced are enough to refute the assertions made to the House of Commons, that vaccination might be safely adopted because it was never fatal.
I have known several bad effects occur in consequence of vaccination. The case of REBECCA LATCHFORD is published: spring and fall she is usually visited with some eruption or suppuration about the face or arm. I have also seen more than two cases similar to that of JOWLES, in which the face has been principally attacked. By some vaccinators these eruptions are called scrofula: but how can this be reconciled with the positive assurance of a justly celebrated surgeon, on which parliament relied; that neither scrofula, nor any other disease, was excited by vaccination.
Besides the singular eruptions above mentioned, I have seen many others of a very itching nature, and some shrivelled scaly skins consequent on cow-pox.
CAPTAIN BUTTS, of the Navy, lost an infant from an eruption which took place immediately from the affection of the arm.
I have information from Hertford of five cases of small-pox occurring after vaccination, in four of which the patients died.
In Lambeth Workhouse several died of small-pox subsequent to vaccination.
In respect of the consequences of vaccination I am compelled to declare, that I see new and anomalous eruptions following this disease; eruptions, which in the whole course of my former practice I never met with, and which I must conscientiously refer to this novel practice.
MR. BIRCH concludes as the result of observation and experience:
1. That cow-pox has in more than one instance proved fatal.
2. That cow-pox is productive of new appearances of disease, unknown before in the catalogue of human impurities.
3. That cow-pox is not by any means to be depended on as a security against the natural small-pox.
EXTRACT FROM THE REPORT OF THE FIRST VACCINE INSTITUTION:
"It is our duty to acknowledge that four or five cases have proved fatal from the affection of the part vaccinated."
Dr. LETTSOM, 1805,
Was one of JENNER’S coadjutors in introducing the cow-pox. A friend of DR. LETTSOM, writing in the Gentleman’s Magazine for 1802, says :—" It has been disputed of the old inoculation whether any other disease could be transmitted with the small-pox: DR. LETTSOM grants there may, which is a serious hazard."
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, 1805; Public Lecturer on the Theory and Practice of Medicine, &c.
In 1805, wrote :—It results from the general resume of all these authentic facts, that out of 504 persons vaccinated in England, 75 died from the consequences, and almost all have had the small-pox, some sooner, some later, after their 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 7 or 8 years, (from 1798 to 1805,) vaccination has shown 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 bosom 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.
LONDON COLLEGE OF SURGEONS, 1806
Eleven hundred circulars were dispatched on 15th December, 1806, to all the members of the College whose addresses were known in the United Kingdom, submitting the following questions—
1st. How many persons have you vaccinated?
2nd. Have any of your patients had small-pox after vaccination;
3rd. Have any bad effects occurred in your experience in consequence of vaccination? and if so, what were they ?
4th. Is the practice of vaccination increasing or decreasing in your neighbourhood? if decreasing, to what cause do you impute it?
To the 1100 circulars only 426 replies were received. Why nearly two-thirds of the members kept silent, when at the outset they were converted in multitudes to Vaccination, is left unexplained. The replies were thus summarised by the Board on 17th March, 1807—
The- number of persons stated in such letters to have been vaccinated, is 164,381.
The number of cases in which small-pox had followed vaccination is 56.
The Board think it proper to remark under this head, that, in the enumeration of cases in which small-pox has succeeded vaccination, they have included none but those in which the subject was vaccinated by the surgeon reporting the facts.
The bad consequences which have arisen from vaccination are—
66 cases of eruption of the skin, and
24 of inflammation of the arm, whereof
3 proved fatal.
Vaccination, in the greater number of counties from which reports have been received, appears to be increasing: in the metropolis it is on the decrease.
The principal reasons assigned for the decrease are—
Imperfect vaccination,
Instances of small-pox after vaccination,
Supposed bad consequences,
Publications against the practice,
Popular prejudices.
DR. GREENE, BOSTON, U.S., 1806,
Reported to the Boston Society of Medical Improvement a fatal case of erysipelas following re-vaccination.
DR. JENNER,
Writing to JAMES MOORE:, in 1810, said, "When I found DR. WOODVILLE about to publish his pamphlet relative to the eruptive cases at the Small-pox Hospital, I intreated 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 of Jenner, ii., 374.
Dg. CAPADOSE, The Hague, Holland, 1823.
We may expect a similar effect of vaccination as if we tried to protect the body against those terrible ulcers by inoculating their virus; and if inoculation of small-pox be dangerous, vaccination must be so too. The deleterious virus in the lymph being a poisonous germ, the application of it will be tantamount to poisoning the blood, whether the lymph be taken from cows or from children. As every remedy ought to be applied according to the particular constitution, the state of health, and the disposition of the patient, the uniform and universal use of the same means or virus promiscuously to every person, whether infant, adult, or aged person, will cause the prophylactic remedy, like all specifics, to be condemned as quackery. No one can tell what will be the effect of the nostrum upon the health of every one to whom it is administered. Science is plunged into an ocean of uncertainty, and the more you re-vaccinate the more you will complicate your course; and as it ought to be left to every one to take care of his own health and that of his children, or to take the advice of the physician in whom he has confidence, and to follow the way his constitution requires, compulsory vaccination ought not to be entertained.—Bestryding der Vaccine. 2nd Edition.
GEORGE GREGORY, M.D., 1840.
I have heard the particulars of a case where erysipelas and cow-pox co-existed, and the lymph being unfortunately taken, both diseases were communicated to the child. I have no experience bearing on the question whether measles can be communicated along with cow-pox, but it would be going too far to say that such a thing is impossible. As little have I to say practically on the question of communicating syphilis by means of the vaccine virus, but I am not prepared to deny the possibility of such an occurrence. DR. JENNER, as we all know, laid great stress on the danger of vaccinating while the system was pre-occupied by herpes, lepra, or psoriasis. I have frequently seen the vaccine vesicle assume the leprous character; nor can I doubt that the combination of the Leprous and true vaccine disease would be propagated, if anyone were so unwise as to employ such degenerated lymph.—London Medical Gazette P. 658. Vol. xxvi.
DR. HENRY COLES, Cheltenham, 1840.
A medical friend in this place, (much my senior, and whose authority, consequently, is much weightier than mine,) lately pronounced on an eruptive case, that it arose from the child having been vaccinated from an unhealthy subject. I have been astonished at the number of persons from whom I have heard of this child "turned into a most horrid spectacle;" and I find that the caution of parents (always in the extreme on this point), has of late been aggravated to a very annoying extent. It is not enough to be able to answer for the parents of the child, but I have had enquiries put to me respecting the preceding generation, and if the fancies and fears of the idle and wealthy are to be sanctioned and encouraged, it will be soon expedient that practitioners in this place should furnish themselves with the genealogy of all the clodpoles in Gloucestershire, together with a record of the integrity of their constitutions, and a voucher for the purity of their morals.—London Medical Gazette. p. 626. Vol. xxvi.
THE LANCET, March 30th, 1840.
It appears that there still exists in Italy, not only among the people, but many medical men, a great prejudice against vaccination diseases which occur after vaccination being often attributed to the inoculation of the virus.
DUBLIN JOURNAL OF MEDICAL SCIENCE, 1844,
Publishes’ a series of cases of erysipelas following vaccination.
PROFESSOR JOSEPH JONES, M.D.
It is said that in 1849-50 Erysipelas so frequently followed vaccination in Boston, and the result was so often fatal, that many physicians refused to vaccinate, except when it was absolutely necessary, and almost entirely abandoned re-vaccination.— Researches upon Spurious Vaccination, Nashville, Tennessee, U.S.
PROFESSOR BARTLETT, of New York, 1850.
Lecturing at the University of New York, in 1850, on the causes of pulmonary consumption, quoted on the authority of two eminent French physicians, DR. BARTHEZ and DR. RILLIEZ, the following important facts connected with vaccination: "Of 208 children that had been vaccinated, 138 died of tubercular consumption, and 70 of other maladies. In 95 who were not vaccinated, only 30 died of tubercular Consumption, and 65 of other diseases." The circumstances, adds DR. BARTLETT, "connected with the two classes, the vaccinated and un-vaccinated, were, as nearly as could be, the same."
DR. VERDE DE LISLE, 1850.
How is it that in an enlightened century, the Academy of Medicine, which is the centre and stimulus of this great question, tries to support a pitiable prejudice, not by solid and irrefutable reasons, but by pomposity, prizes, medals, and admonitions? It is high time, in the interest of science and humanity, to stop, and show how this vile, beastly corruption of the blood has injured our race. It is high time for the Academy to take up again this question among its labours, if it would not burden itself with a heavy responsibility for all the misery with which vaccination has already afflicted from three to four generations. It is time to examine whether JENNER and his coadjutors, in order to have their so called protective remedy against small-pox adopted, had the dishonest view to deceive the Government and public about the real nature of their specific.
In case of an affirmative answer, we will ask the Academy:—
1. Whether by the transplantation of a skin disease from an animal to the human creature, other affections beside a skin disease are not transferred?
2. Whether, in consequence of the transfer of these skin diseases, the absorbing and resorbing ability of the skin vessels is not also partly destroyed?
3. Whether, in consequence of this effect, the loathsome eruptive matters destined by nature to be thrown out of our economy, do not find an insurmountable barrier in the skin, and are therefore compelled to develop themselves in the interior in various forms; and whether these vaccinal disorganisations are not infinitely more serious, and a hundred times more fatal, than the natural small-pox, which the vaccine poisoning offers to prevent?
4. Whether the number of these diseases, which have so luxuriantly grown since the introduction of the cow-pox, are not the effects of vaccination ?
DR. NITTINGER, of STUTTGART, 1850.
How rapidly does the scourge progress! The terrible, ominous commotion begins already the first, fourth, seventh, and ninth day after the vaccination; many, many children fall its victims ; and again others are more fortunate, but mostly some misery remains.
The mucous membranes, particularly those of the organs of the senses and generation, (in adults,) attest the sufferings and dangers originating in the inoculated kine pox poison—ophthalmia, otorrhoea, fluor albus, prurigo, &c.—Evils of Vaccination.
Dr. COPELAND, 1850.
Just half a century has elapsed since the discovery and introduction of vaccination, and after a quarter of a century of the most transcendant laudation of the measure, and after another quarter of a century of reverberated encomiums from well-paid Vaccination Boards, raised with a view of overbearing the increased murmurings of disbelief (now rapidly increasing) among those who observe and think for themselves; the middle of the nineteenth century finds the majority of the profession in all latitudes and hemispheres, doubtful as to the preponderance of advantages present and prospective, to be obtained either from inoculation or vaccination. DR. COPELAND also says,—that vaccination favours the prevalence of several forms of scrofula..—Dictionary of Practical Medicine. P. 823.
THE MEDICAL TIMES & GAZETTE for Jan. 1st, 1854,
Also informs us that consumption "has widely spread since the introduction of vaccination, and within ten years (ending 1853) had slain its 68,204 victims in the metropolis alone."
THE LANCET, July 15th, 1854.
There is a belief, it may he .denounced as a prejudice, but it is not the less a deeply rooted conviction, and one not confined to the poor or the ignorant, that, if the vaccine disease maybe transmitted by inoculation, other diseases, less beneficial, may be propagated in the same manner, and by the same operation. Many a parent of high and low degree, dates constitutional disease in her offspring to vaccination with bad matter. Who should say that this etiological conclusion is always false?
THE LANCET, Nov. 11th, 1854.
So widely extended is the dread that along with the prophylactic remedy something else may be inoculated—lest the germ of future disease 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.
DR. R. T. TRALL, New York, 1855.
Physicians are not at all agreed as to the propriety of resorting to vaccination as a protection from small-pox. There is no question that it is, to a great extent, a protection from the virulence and danger of the natural smallpox; at the same time, there is danger of inoculating the patient with some loathsome, and even worse disease, as syphilis or scrofula, from the impossibility of always getting a supply of matter from healthy constitutions. In either way there is a risk to incur, and it is a delicate matter for a physician to advise on a subject when both sides are hazardous. I am fully convinced, that if people could bring up their children in strict physiological habits, the non-vaccinating plan would be altogether the best; but in a city this seems next to impossible, and in the country it is pretty generally neglected. Children reared healthily in relation to food, exercise, and ventilation, have little to fear from any disease, however contagious; they may have this (small-pox), but it will not endanger life, nor produce much deformity, nor serious injury. I have seen within the last year a most horridly loathsome case of scrofulous disease, in which the patient literally rotted alive at the age of 15, from unhealthy virus received when he was but three years of age. Parents often find some of their children tainted with morbid humours, unlike any other member of the family, and which they are wholly unable to account for, except on the supposition of foul matter taken into the system by vaccination. My own practice would be to keep children as healthy as possible; and if the small-pox happen, let it have its natural course.—Hydropathic Encyclopedia p96
DR. T.S. McALL of Greenock
I have every reason to believe that lymph taken from a party with hereditary disease, conveys that disease with it.—Reply to circular of Medical Officer of Privy Council, as to Vaccination, 1856.
DR. HAMERNIK, Prague.
The operation of vaccination is not in itself so insignificant as has been supposed, and very frequently is followed by results more or less injurious. At one period it was declared that from 1 to 2 per cent of vaccinated cases ended fatally. Cases have frequently been observed in which vaccination has been followed by St. Vitus’ dance, swelling of the glands of the shoulder and arm, abscesses, withering up of the punctured and the surrounding parts, accompanied by shivering attacks; increased heat of the body, heightened pulse, &c. The deaths that have ensued from vaccination seem to have been caused by pyaemia, so-called, following upon it.—Reply to Circular, Medical Officer of Privy Council, 1856.
DR. LEVER, Physician to Guy’s Hospital, London.
I have known syphilis communicated to a child by the hand of a legally educated medical practitioner.—Reply to Circular of Medical Officer Of Privy Council 1856.
DR. JOEL SHEW, Cincinnati, U.S.
Commenting on a case of death from vaccination which was reported in the "New York Journal, Medical arid Surgical," gives a case of a lady whose health had been injured by vaccination, and adds,— In two other cases large swellings took place; one in the arm-pit, the other in the neck, lasting for some days, and finally breaking out in running sores. By questioning closely, we not unfrequently find that children never enjoy good health after vaccination, however firm it might have been before.
In another place the same author says,— After all the recommendation that this practice has had for the
last 50 years, there are yet those who entertain honest doubts as to whether it is, after all, on the whole, a benefit to the race. At any rate, the question, like all others, has two sides ; both of which demand our most honest consideration. It is certainly true that vaccination does not merit the encomiums which its more early advocates put upon it; nor is it anything like capable of exterminating small-pox from the world, as was formerly maintained; but
page 18 missing
to have given occasion to the distinction between a genuine and modified small-pox (varicella)—a distinction evidently made with the view of maintaining at all hazards the dogma to which vaccinators have committed themselves, as to the influence of vaccination in modifying the outbreaks of the epidemic. These clinical subtleties, belonging to the category of chimeras, have long since proved to be illusory; in reality, there is no such distinaion; for, even in a mild epidemic of varicella, a careful observer will be able to discover amongst the sufferers fully developed pustules of smallpox, possessing every attribute of the true and genuine pustule.— From the Natutrarzt.
DR. JOHN EPPS, 25 years Director of the Jennerian Institute, had vaccinated about 120,000 people, but finally declared, 1861—
The vaccine virus is a poison. As such it penetrates all organic systems, and infects them in such a way as to act repressively on the pox. It is neither antidote nor corrigent, nor does it neutralise the small-pox, but only paralyses the expansive power of a good constitution, so that the disease has to fall back upon the mucous membrane. Nobody has the right to transplant such a mischievous poison compulsorily into the life of a child. If the vaccine virus be not eliminated in the form of a genuine vaccine vesicle, the system is unquestionably poisoned. And again :—If the vaccine lymph does not produce the vaccine disease, it produces something else—i.e., a noxious agent is introduced to poison the system against the poison of small-pox ; but if it does not produce this effect, it still poisons, without the benefit superadded of protection from small-pox.—London Vaccine Institute Report, 1863.
PROFESSOR RICORD, M.D., Paris.
If the transmission of disease is clearly demonstrated, vaccination must be altogether discontinued. For in the present state of science, we are in possession of no criteria,, that may permit the conscientious practitioner to assert that the lymph with which he inoculates is perfectly free from admixture with tainted blood.
—Lecture at the hotel Dieu, Paris, 1862.
At first I repelled the idea that syphilis could be transmitted by vaccination. The recurrence of facts appearing more and more confirmatory, I accepted the possibility, but still with reserve and even with repugnance; but to-day I hesitate no longer to proclaim their reality!—Address at the Academy of Medicine, Paris; May 19th, 1863.
PROFESSOR RICORD, M.D., Paris.
My position is simply this—I suspect that isolated examples of syphilitic infection through vaccination are much more common in this country than is generally admitted. For the chance of the occurrence of such isolated cases is infinitely greater than that of a wholesale outbreak of vaccinal syphilis, and when such wholesale outbreaks have been noted, I cannot help feeling certain that many isolated cases of infection have occurred without their nature being detected or admitted.—Letter to MR. W. HUME-ROTHERY, December 24th, 1879.
MEDICAL TIMES & GAZETTE of May 30th, 1863.
On the 14th May, 1863, Mr. WELLs vaccinated a lady, the mother of a family, taking good matter from the vesicle of a healthy child; immediately upon making the punctures the patient swooned. A visit on the following morning disclosed the fact of very singular symptoms having set in; the arm was much swollen, and had a dark purplish hue, much resembling the colour of a bullock’s liver, the punctures nearly invisible, and the whole region of the operation presenting the appearance of having been bitten by some venomous reptile. The symptoms grew rapidly worse, entirely baffling medical skill, and the patient died on the 18th, of phlegmonous erysipelas.
DR. O. KRATZ, Surgeon, Confederate Army, U.S.A.
After reporting cases of vaccine syphilis, says, "I have seen one case, where the product of vaccination was Surpetigo rodent, a frightful disease of, I believe, a cancerous character. Some cases had herpes exedens, as the result of vaccination on their arms.— Confiderate States Medical and Surgical journal, pp 104, Vol. i. 1864.
DR. COLLINS, M.D., Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh, M.R.C.S., Eng., &c., 1866.
I have no faith in vaccination; nay, I look upon it with the greatest possible disgust, and firmly believe that it is often the medium of conveying many filthy and loathsome diseases from one child to another, and no protection whatever against small pox. Indeed, I consider we arc now living in the JENNERIAN epoch for the slaughter of innocents, and the unthinking portion of the adult population.—(Twenty years experience of a Public Vaccinater.)
Dr FRANK HASTINGS HAMILTON, late Lieutenant Colonel, Medical Inspector, United States Army.
Vaccination almost constantly produces the same results (i.e., ugly and untractable sores), and is in many cases followed by abscesses in the axillary, cervical, and other glands.— Treatise on Military Surgery, quoted by PROFESSOR JONES, in Researches upon Spurious Vaccination P. 26. 1867.
JOSEPH JONES, M.D.. Professor of Physiology and Pathology, University, Nashville, U.S. 1868.
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 Feb. 24, 1864, to Oct. i, 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 introdumced 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 willfully poisoned the Federal prisoners with vaccine lymph, it was shown that the unhappy consequences of vaccination at Andersonville were paralleled in the Northern prisons. "Alter 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 Southcrn."—Researches upon spurious Vaccination
T. MASSEY HARDING MRCS, LSA House Surgeon to Middx Hospital, Public Vaccinator for 12 years in Worcestershire.
When a child is vaccinated about that time (dentition), and some eruption succeeds, it is difficult to say whether the vaccination or the dentition is the cause. It is not right, however, to view this popular prejudice as a silly, groundless feeling, deserving only of ridicule. Deep-rooted popular opinions have generally a substratum of truth, and certainly some eruptive diseases have come on so immediately after vaccination as to render it extremely probable that the operation was the real cause of the eruption. These eruptions are generally of an eczematous nature—the skin is red, a serous fluid exudes freely. Most writers consider dentition the starting-point, and regard its occurrence after vaccination as a coincidence. This may be so, but the explanation certainly does not satisfy the parents of children in whom the eruption takes place immediately after vaccination, and would not satisfy me if it occurred in my own child in a few days after the punctures were made, and at the same time as the vesicle commenced. I bear in mind at this moment that a gentleman, aged fifty-six, not subject to any eruption, was re-vaccinated. The arm was violently inflamed, the matter, as he expressed it, took well. I have previously explained how mistaken such an expression is. This gentleman now, some two or three years after vaccination, is a martyr to an eczematous eruption over the body, and is himself much inclined to blame the vaccination. Some gentlemen, on the other hand, are such enthusiasts as to think that vaccination is capable of curing skin diseases of every variety, and gravely propose to employ it as a curative agent in skin diseases, including the syphilitic eruptions.
—From Small-pox and Vaccination, published by the Ladies Sanitary Association, London, 1868.
DR. BALLARD, now one of Her Majesty’s Vaccine Inspectors,
Summed up the evidence as follows:—
1. There are numerous cases on record to prove that the vaccine virus and the syphilitic virus may be introduced at the same spot by the same puncture of the vaccinating lancet.
2.—From several instances on record, there can remain no reasonable doubt that the vaccine virus and the syphilitic virus may both be drawn at the same time, upon the same instrument, from one and the same vesicle.
3.—The vesicle which is thus capable of furnishing both vaccine and syphilitic virus may present, prior to being opened, all the normal and fully developed characters of a true Jennerian vesicle, as ordinarily met with.—Essay on Vaccination. Pimblished 1868.
DR. B. F. CORNELL, M.D., President of the Homeopathic Medical Society, of New York.
It is my firm conviction that vaccination has been a curse instead of a blessing to the race; every physician knows that cutaneous diseases nave increased in frequency, severity, and variety, to an alarming extent. Not only the ancient forms of eruptive disease, scrofula, psora, erysipelas, tetter, &c., but new varieties are making their appearance, for ‘which no satisfactory cause can be given, unless they are a compound of all the others, with a sprinkling of venereal to give them respectability; and, as contemporaries, a corresponding increase of chronic disease of all the internal organs. To what is this increase owing? contagion may account for some of the varieties ; in a large majority, however, to no medium of transmission is the wide-spread dissemination of this class of disease so largely indebted as to Vaccination. Feb. 11th, 1868.
DR. McCONNELL REED, M.D., L.R.C.P. Edin., 1869.
While some members of the medical profession declare it to be the result of their experience and general observation, that the practice of vaccination has increased the susceptibility to pulmonary consumption in adults, and the general mortality of infants and children—can you be surprised at the fact that there is a growing disinclination on the part of conscientious parents to submit to have their children vaccinated by comupulsion ? I confess that with my own experience as a medical practitioner, and with the knowledge of the experience and opinions of others capable of forming a correct judgment on this subject, I cannot advise my patients to have their children vaccinated : but I would strongly advise the Government to adopt measures to bring about a speedy repeal of the compulsory clauses of the vaccination acts.—Anglesca Place, Commercial Road, London, E.
DR. SPENCER T. HALL, MA.
He said his attention had long been drawn to this question, and the more he had looked into it, the more he had found evidence abounding in various parts of the kingdom—and this in every rank of life—of instances of persons being more unhealthy after vaccination than they were before. People of rank did not like to confess to the world that their blood was contaminated, though many of them had to mourn the fact in private life. Almost without exception—and he said this without unkindly feeling towards his medical brethren—it would be found that if a person well oft wanted a child vaccinated, the doctor would seldom go to the parish pauper for his lymph; but while this was going on, the poor pauper children were being vaccinated from one another by hundreds. Let us look this question fairly in the face.—Southport Visitor, Aug. 24th, 1869.
MR. J. D. BROWN, F.R.C.S.E., L.S.A., of Haverford-West.
I have been 30 years in the profession, and have never vaccinated a child without trembling for the results; never sent to London for vaccine without a qualm of conscience, supplied (as it is well known to be) from the lowest grade of infected children, born of parents steeped in the most loathsome, diseases, highly communicative by blood, lymph, and matter, and from that den of collected human ruin our pure lymph (save the mark!) is obtained.
This discovery that immortalised JENNER rescued the human race from the cruel tyranny and the hideous stamp of small-pox. Since that day the pure stream has passed through millions of human beings, taking some evil out of each—certainly all that can pass from blood to lymph, and therefore all that can be conveyed from man to man. What a tide of corruption it is by this time, I leave your readers to imagine, and how far it has lost its pristine power: how much polluted it must be with many nameless diseases, had better remain untold. Can we blame a mother, or punish a father, for refusing to convey this poison into their offspring’s blood—a poison perhaps reeking with the stamp of a curse that never dies out till the awful sentence is fulfilled, and the fourth generation has suffered, in whose tomb it lies buried ?—Milford Haven Telegraph, Sept. 22nd, 1869.
DR. CHARLES KIDD
It is satisfactory to find that the poor woman imprisoned for neglect of vaccination has been set at liberty. Hudibras tells us of certain Puritans who are ever so exacting, perverse, and in the right, that they seem to worship God for spite. So it is to be feared of the animal vaccinators from the heifer, gushing sensationalists, and others who would wish to keep this woman in gaol, to point the moral of their new fangles. It is clear that we want some relaxation of these penal clauses as to vaccination. We want vaccination to be left in its natural channel, amongst proper medical men—not enforced by handcuffs and goals, and the tender mercies of the police and mechanical-minded public vaccinators. I have seen a terrible disease in an infant that I could not, after the utmost inquiry, find out to be due to anything but this compulsory vaccination of children in shoals, without discrimination. Such a thing could not happen in France or Ireland, where dispensary men are careful, conscientious, and well educated; men who vaccinate half-a-dozen infants, perhaps, in a week,—not a hundred higgledy-piggledy by Act of Parliament. The mere crowding together of the children is a source of disease in itself. We have inspectors, who inspect after the harm is done; but what we want is less inspecting, and better preparation of the children for the operation, and an accurate and good vaccine lymph.—CHARLES K1DD, M.D., Sackville Street. Anti Vaccinator, Oct. 2nd, 1869.
DR. M. G. EVANS, M.D., Pubic Vaccinator for 16 years. Narberth, 1869.
Animal vaccination has been extensively tried on the Continent and may have many good points about it; but competent judges affirm that the lymph obtained direct from the heifer acts too violently; and where could parties be found willing to supply heifers to keep up a stock of lymph? It is well known that in this country much more attention in general is devoted to the health of those animals, than is bestowed upon the health of the children of their proprietors, and who would not, for a small consideration, permit their stock to be operated on. Again; would it be justifiable to introduce into the system of animals a virus said to reek with the stamp of a curse, which animals (at some future date) are inevitably destined to become the food of man? Assuredly not. The idea is as loathsome as it is impracticable.—Anti-Vaccinator, October 23rd, 1869.
DR. STOWELL.
[Twenty-five years a vaccine practitioner.] The nearly general declaration of my patients enables me to proclaim that vaccination is not only an illusion, but a curse for humanity. More than ridiculous—it is irrational to say that any corrupt matter taken from boils and blisters of an organic creature, could affect the human body otherwise than to injure it. First, it was asserted that vaccination protected for life. When this proved a failure, re-vaccination in every seventh year was proposed; but this also failed. Then there was a want of sufficient cow-pox. Well, cows were inoculated with human pox, and the suppurated matter produced by this operation was called pox-lymph, fresh from the cow. This bastard poison is now transferred into human bodies, no matter what disease man or brute may have had; but it is called now-a-days "genuine vaccine." This pure lymph is carried from child to child, and spreads a diseased condition, so that hospitals and drug shops have increased 80 per cent., and continue to do so from day to day. What are 450 physicians of the Bluebook, while there are in London alone 3,000 physicians? I myself know the names of a hundred physicians who think like me.—Lancet, 1870.
Dr. BAYARD.
For my part when I used to vaccinate, I observed many cases of ulcers sufficiently dangerous to necessitate particular care; and mothers, also, have said to me "My child has never been well since it was vaccinated." Consumption seized upon them and many succumbed. With this cow (or horse) virus I had introduced a germ of disintegration, and my preservative did not preserve them from small-pox.—Essay on Vaccination, after 35 years experience. London, 1870. Translated by GEORGE S. GIBBS
Mr. JOHN PRATT, M.R.C.S., Durham, 1870.
Was recently summoned, and he said to the magistrates: My child has not been vaccinated. I have reasons for not obeying the vaccination laws. I obeyed the law with respect to my first child, and the consequence is, that it has been seriously injured by the operation. Being a professional man, I used all the precaution 1 could in selecting good matter ; but in spite of all that, my child has been considerably injured. Under these circumstances, I came to the determination that I would never vaccinate another child of my own or anybody’s. I have considered tile vaccination question for a number of years, and have gone minutely into it, both for and against; and the only conclusion I can arrive at is—that vaccination has no beneficial effect whatever, but that it inflicts very serious injuries. This being my opinion, I cannot conscientiously do an injury to any man’s child, which I would do if I obeyed the vaccination laws—Co-Operator, July 30th, 1870.
MR. R. CEELY, M.R.C.S., L.S.A of Aylesbury.
Dr SEATON says (Hand-book of Vaccination P. 337) :—There is no one in England whose opinion on the subject of animal vaccination will be received with so much respect as MR. CEELY’S, because there is no one who has nearly the knowledge that he possesses of the disease in the cow, and its transmission to the human species. He looks upon this proceeding as not only open to the objection of impractibility as applied to the general population, and of unsuccess ; but he says also, that so far from being likely to produce fewer ailments, and cutaneous eruptions in time predisposed, he knows from his experience that it would, as being more irritating, produce more.
Dr. SKELTON, MD., Licentiate in Medicine and surgery. London, Edinburgh. Author of the ‘Family Medical Adviser." ‘ Science and Practice of Medicine," Midwifery: its Complications, Diseases, &c., 1870."
The blood of the people is saturated with scrofulous and tuberculous diseases ; and the prevailing opinion among thousands of the most thoughtful, non-professional and professional, is, that vaccination has much to do with it.
DR. CHAPMAN,
In recording a case of eczema, resulting from vaccination, says: It may be here observed that chronic diseases may often be traced back to the period of vaccination in such a manner as to show that the virus was commnunicated in that way. British Journal of Homeopathy. No. 29.
DR. TURNBULL, Cheltenham, 1870.
He was sure that there was not a single medical man who would not alter his views respecting vaccination, if he studied the subject for thirty-six hours. He had often stated that vaccination was physiologically wrong, and there was not a doctor living who could prove the reverse. He had seen healthy children die rotten, from the effects of vaccination ; and although the doctors as a body, were opposed to him, yet he was glad to say that several medical men in Cheltenham had avowed their belief that several children in that town had been destroyed by vaccination.
ENOCH ROBINSON, M.R.C.S., late Medical Officer of Health for Dukinfield.
Before the child is three months old, it meets with another influence that is calculated to strengthen any infective process which may be already at work in the system, and originate such a process in a child otherwise healthy and vigorous. The most powerful infective substances are the various forms of purulent matter (a low condition of living animal matter, and essentially a phase of disease). One of these purulent forms of matter is the fluid of the vaccine vesicle. When inserted and absorbed into ‘the living blood by an unnatural method, it exerts an influence of an infective character, opposed to the healthy vital power, and weakening to the extent of its influence the natural vigour of the body. That the natural vital powers are too strong for it in many cases, is recognised in the supposed necessity for re-vaccination. But in ascertaining the causes of the high rate of infant mortality, the degrading influence of vaccine matter must be considered.—From Letter to the Local Board of health on the Causes of High Infant Mortality in Dukinfield.
Dr. HEIM, Public Vaccinator, Wurtemburg,
Says :—That the most expert diagnostician will not always be able to detect dyscrasy in children of the vaccination age, and that he himself has transplanted syphilis from a child which seemed to him perfectly healthy.—From Horrors of Vaccination. P. 26.
Dr. BAKEWELL, M.D., M.R.C.S., Vaccinator-General of Trinidad, 1871
During the 21 years in which I have been in the habit of vaccinating, I have seen very few cases in which any skin disease followed the operation so soon after as to be fairly attributable to it. Nevertheless, I feel bound to say that the amount of testimony I have heard against it from mothers—and the number of cases of skin eruptions, especially, which they have declared to have followed vaccination in children previously free from anything of the kind, led me to infer either that some vaccinators have been very careless as to the sources of their lymph, or that certain constitutional diseases may be conveyed by vaccination.
Since I have been in Trinidad—and particularly since I have been Vaccinator-General—my attention has been much directed to the subject of leprosy, and its possible propagation by vaccination. It is a strange but undoubted fact, that leprosy is greatly increasing in this island ; that it is attacking the children of most respectable parents, who want nothing in the way of diet, &c. And, moreover, it is attacking the children of Europeans, where there can be no possibility of hereditary taint. Now, it is worthy of remark, that in this island vaccination has of late years been compulsory; and that a large portion of the younger people were actually vaccinated during an epidemic of small-pox a few years ago. The general opinion among medical men is, that it is quite possible that leprosy may be propagated in this manner. It is curious, too, that in those islands where vaccination is not much used, there is very much less leprosy in proportion than here.
SIR WILLIAM GULL, BART., M.D..
In the Commons Committee of 1871, was asked (Q. 4,869), "Have you known erysipelas to occur after re-vaccination? Have you seen death resulting from it ?" Dr. GULL replied: "I have not seen death resulting from it, but I know that it has occurred." P. 277.
PENNSYLVANIA MEDICAL JOURNAL, Sep. 1871.
American mothers at last are no more free from the plague of "vaccination" than are British parents. What a prospect for humanity is this propagation of loathsome, contagious diseases! National virusation by a staff of State officers to "preserve" the public health. All the vaccine virus now sold in Alaska-street, Philadelphia, is obtained from children suffering under the influence of scrofula, syphilis, or some kindred pestilence. The vaccine station is neither more nor less than a cesspool of germinal horrors.
DR. COLLINS, M.D., L.R.C.P. Ed., M.R.C.S.
There is no certainty in the action of the vaccine virus upon tile Constitution, it often imparts, or calls into activity, diseases that otherwise would have remained dormant, by debilitating the system and weakening the powers of vitality. 1871.
THOMAS SKINNER, M.D., L.R.C.S., Liverpool, 1872.
That there are many who die of vaccination I have no doubt whatever ; that they are maimed for life I have no doubt ; and that scrofulous and other forms of disease are rendered active by it every physician in family practice knows to be an almost every day occurrence. I saw a case the other day where the little patient has never slept for three weeks, or very little, and it cannot be touched without screaming. It is much emaciated, and otherwise very ill. All this has arisen and dates from the day of its vaccination.
JOSEF HAMERNIK, M.D, Professor of the University of Prague, Bohemia.
Some years since, some terrible cases came to light, which were falsely registered as an epidemic, and which were caused by one vaccinator infecting a whole district with syphilis by vaccination.
In the begining of this year a similar misfortune occurred in the neighbourhood of Melnik, when a number of children in several districts got syphilis by vaccination, and several died of it.
Such epidemics probably occur more frequently than they are described as doing. In the earlier times of the practice of vaccination, no one dared to write anything against it, and thus no means existed of obtaining a correct knowledge of conditions like these.
One would naturally suppose that a single case of the transmission of syphilis by vaccination, incontestably proved, would result in the immediate abandonment of the practice of vaccination, in the instant withdrawal of the Government grant for its support, and in advising the people as to the dangers of vaccination, and showing the impossibility of any but misguided or self-interested physicians advocating its continuance. — The History of Small-pox and Vaccination. Prague, 1872.
DR. J. EMERY CODERRE, Professor of Materia Medica, University, Montreal, Canada.
Vaccination has made victims among us; some have contracted small-pox in consequence of the inoculation of the vaccine; others have been attacked with gangrenous ulcers, syphilitic sores, &c., resulting from the introduction of this virus into the constitution.— From a paper read before the Medical Society, .Montreal, January 31st, 1872.
MR. F. T. PORTER, M.R.C.S.
With reference to revaccination, I have no faith in it. Not one of the 36 attendants at the South Dublin Union sheds has taken small-pox. Only 7 of the number were revaccinatcd, and as the remaining 29 enjoyed the same immunity, wherein is the necessity of the operation? I have known gouty inflammation, abscess of the breast, (angio-leucitis), &c., to result from the operation. I cannot in the face of such facts approve of it. Moreover, the sense of the profession is against it.—Medical Press and Circular, March 27th, 1872.
DR. STARTIN.
Believed in 30 years he had seen about thirty cases of syphilis communicated by vaccination. He had seen hundreds of cases of spurious vaccination, where contagious porrigo had been inoculated. He had seen scabies vaccinated on more than one occasion. When DR. SIMON sent out his circular, in 18566, he (Dr STARTIN) collected several cases, giving the names and addresses of the patients, but no notice had been taken of them. They were undoubtedly cases where the children had been perfectly healthy, as well as their parents and nurses.—Discussion at the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society, June, 1872.
WILLIAM HITCHMAN, M.D., D.C.L.
I have been acquainted with the morbid effects of vaccination for nearly 40 years, and have witnessed crowds of cases, both in hospitals and private practice, analogous to the Guy’s Hospital model; but lest my testimony may not be deemed sufficiently impartial or unbiassed, I shall quote fronm the records of the Smallpox Hospital, to prove that pure lymph, even in the hands of MR. MARSON himself, is occasionally attended with very impure consequences. M. A. W., aged 4, a fine child, was vaccinated by MR. MARSON in five places on the left arm, the poor child at the time being in perfect health, on the 19th May. The arms soon became severely inflamed, and spots of purpura appeared on the face. The vesicles on the eighth day appeared dark and filled with blood, and numerous effusions were dispmersed over the entire body. The areola assumed a mahogany appearance. In fact, the vaccine vesicles were jet black with fearful blotchcs—worrse, I think-, than the eruption of small-pox itself— dispersed (as I have said) over the whole body of this unhappy child thus "protected" by a paternal Government from disease; more especially involving the face, neck, and arms, and over the skin, together with bleeding from the left ear and nostril. Enough, and to spare, of these morbid phenomena now propagated by Acts of Parliament.—The Anti-Vaccinator, Oct. 7th, 1871.
As for time children recently vaccinated in Liverpool, I may say, from my own private observation, without reference to the many thousands I have seen at the hospital for skin diseases, that the health of hundreds has been thereby permanently affected with intractable forms of cutaneous eruption: emphatically have I seen strumous ulcers rapidly developed, acute ophthalmia, chronic enlargements of the cervical glands, diseases of the scalp, purulent discharges, foetid abscesses, and gangrenous inflammation of parts, followed by sloughing, while the throat, especially, of many such miserable sufferers according to Act of Parliament, together with the palate, uvula, and tonsils, are periodically covered with dark livid incrustations, more difficult to heal than those of small-pox itself, inasmuch as they owe their disgusting origin to the foul exudations of that indefinite, nameless, hideous thing now in course of active propagation throughout the land, yclept vaccino-syphilis.
—From the Anti- Vaccinator, Dec. 16th, 1872.
DR. HENRY A. MARTIN, Boston, U.S.A.
The reason why, in February, 1873, I abruptly ceased to propagate and collect humanized virus was, because in one week of that month I had five cases of erysipelas. They were all in children vaccinated on one arm with the institution "stock" and on the other with cow-pox; and in every instance the disease appeared on the humanized side, I had previously had four precisely similar cases scattered over the preceding two and a half years, and contemplated an eventual abandonment of the old stock; but this epidemic determined me at once to discontinue vaccination with humanized virus.—Unfortunate Results of Vaccination.
MEDICAL TIMES & GAZETTE, February 1st, 1873.
The important subject of vaccinal syphilis came again before the Medico-Chirurgical Society on Tuesday evening, when a paper was read by Mr. HUTCHINSON, detailing two new cases. He also drew some general deductions from the facts as already ascertained, which, together with others elicited in the course of the discussion that followed, constitute the most important practical suggestions yet made with regard to this most unsatisfactory subject. That syphilis could be communicated by vaccination was, though admitted abroad, long disputed in this country. Since the publication of MR. HUTCHINSON’S paper, and a communication by MR. THOMAS SMITH to the Clinical Society, where the patient was exhibited, it can no longer be so. We have now emerged from the region of doubt, to one of belief in the possibility of such an untoward occurrence; and, in accordance with the practical turn which most professional discussions sooner or later take in this country, we have promptly begun to seek a remedy for the possible evil.
Heretofore, as we have said, it has not been admitted that, if due care be taken, syphilitic infection by vaccination is possible. Especially has this been urged by the Crown officers when asked to encourage heifer vaccination. The facts flow before the public will tend to rouse them, if they have not been roused already, from the false security into which they have been lulled. And, as was stated at the meeting, it is plain that Our compulsory vaccination laws cannot be maintained unmodified.