Vaccination

In the Light of Modern Enquiry.

At the present juncture, when the public mind is somewhat agitated on the subject of small-pox, it may not be out of place to present a few of the facts on which those opposed to the practice of vaccination ground their antagonism to it. So far as the movement has gone yet, its promoters have been looked upon as fanatics, crazed with an idea based on no rational data whatever. Without at this stage attempting to controvert the supposition contained in the latter part of this judgment, two facts bearing upon it may be, perhaps, beneficially pointed out. The first is that fanatics are really the motive power to all progress, and were there none such, and all were to act on the let-well-alone principle, social advancement would be an impossibility. The second is that the inception of all new truths, and the development of the doctrines built upon them, and the movements demanded by them, is ever met with the same jeers, and the same accusations of crazy fanaticism. It is a peculiarity of humanity, at its present phase of growth, that the majority refuse to perceive any virtue in anything new, until its own inherent truth overcomes opposition, and the seal of fashionable acceptance is set upon it. In this, they overlook the obvious fact that, if nature is really undergoing a process of growth, that which is newest is, if only for that very reason, most likely to be truest. It is only on the supposition of a control of a catastrophical character that an old-established custom can be regarded as possessing any element of permanent necessity. The temperance movement may be quoted as a case in point. Five-and-twenty years ago temperance promoters were stigmatised as crazy fanatics who were without the resolution to keep sober unless taking a pledge to do so; but in this our day total abstinence is beginning to be fashionable, and a man can declare himself an abstainer without dread of being set down a lunatic.

The anti-vaccination movement is as yet very young, but it has already drawn within its ranks such men as Herbert Spencer, Francis Newman, John Bright, Sir T. Chambers, Dr. C. T. Pearce, Dr. W. J. Collins, and many distinguished Americans and Europeans, and Mr. Spencer's name alone is sufficient to demand for it the consideration of all thoughtful people.

The opposition to the practice of vaccination is based on many considerations, which I will, as briefly as may be, proceed to recapitulate. First, it is pointed out that the medical profession is completely undecided on the question, their allegations with regard to it undergoing continual modification. Dr. Jenner, in 1799, said, "When it has been found, in such abundant instances, that the human frame, when once it has felt the influence of the genuine cow-pox in the way that has been page 4 described, is never afterwards, at any period of its existence, assailable by the small-pox, may I not with perfect confidence congratulate my country, and society at large, on their beholding in the mild form of cow-pox, an antidote that is capable of extirpating from the earth a disease which is every hour devouring its victims." In 1800 he said, in the "Origin of Variola Vaccinæ," that "it became too evident to admit of controversy that the annihilation of the small-pox must be the final result of the discovery." But in 1809 he propounded a new theory—"that vaccination protected from small-pox as much, and no more, than small-pox itself protected from a recurring attack." This is a serious departure from his original position, and if the discoverer and founder of the system could be so uncertain about it, laymen may be excused if they inquire which is the correct one.

But since Jenner's day further departures have been taken, and such is the want of unanimity among the profession that it may be said, without exaggeration, that no two standard medical works will be found to agree on all points in the matter. Some say that vaccination is not a positive protection against an attack of small-pox, but that the attack with people so operated on will be but of a mild and harmless character, where otherwise it would have been fatal. A section of this school also maintains that the efficacy of the operation continues only for a period, which with some is short, and with others long. Another theory lays it down that the process is a positive preventive against an attack of the disease for a period, at the end of which re-vaccination is necessary; but here also the school is unable to decide upon the duration of the period of its efficiency. Fourteen years, seven years, five years, three years, one year, all have their advocates. Dr. Lionel Beale states that he has been vaccinated twenty-one times, and it may well be asked, if all this is necessary, whether the cure is not as bad as the disease, and whether most people would not prefer to run the chance of escaping an attack altogether, than to go through such an ordeal. Another point on which the doctors differ is as to the number of punctures required, and from one to eight is each recommended. Again, there is disagreement as to the relative merits of the ordinary stock lymph, and of the strain of Beaugency calf-lymph, and lymph taken direct from the cow or calf. How can there be any certainty, even in the fundamentals of a matter in which such conflicting dogmas are laid down by those who claim to be experts? If there be such efficacy in vaccination, how is it that the doctors cannot agree as to what the efficacy consists in? Surely such uncertainty is of itself presumptive evidence that the system is unsound at its very root.

The popular theory is that vaccination is in some way a protection against small-pox, though no one could exactly explain how, or to what degree. But though this is the popular theory, neither legislators nor people would seem to have any real faith in it. When Sir T. Chambers, the Recorder of page 5 London, was arguing in the House of Commons against the penalties for non-vaccination, he was met with the reply, "What right have you to allow your unvaccinated child to be a peril to the community?" Now 96 per cent, of the English people were vaccinated, and were thus supposed to be in some way protected from small-pox; and it is surely to the point to ask what harm a healthy unvaccinated child could possibly do to children supposed to be protected. It is a distinct desertion of the citadel, and an utter ignoring of the protective theory. Vaccination is either a protection, or it is not; and if it is, what danger can there possibly be to the vaccinated from any outside influence whatever? And if it is not what is the good of it? And yet this is the sole argument in favor of compulsory vaccination!

The next point to which anti-vaccinators draw attention is that vaccination has not stamped out small-pox, for that disease is at times as prevalent as ever it was. It is often said by the apologists of the system that as the disease for a time decreased very much shortly after Jenner's discovery, it is evident that the operation must be accompanied by the results claimed for it. But this position admits of much question. Vaccination was for some time very unpopular, and but a small percentage of the population submitted to it. The Registrar's department was not constituted until 1838, so that any figures previous to this date are, for the most part, conjectural and unreliable, and any statistics put forward must be received with reservation. But though this is the case it is pretty certain the percentage of the population vaccinated for twenty years after Jenner's discovery was very trifling indeed—not more than two per cent. This conclusion is arrived at by analogy from the first return of the Registrar-General's report in 1838, and from the general records of the time. But it is clear that if the percentage was so small it could scarcely be claimed for vaccination that to it was due the cessation, or rather diminution, of small-pox. May it not with more reason be said that, like all diseases, it died out of itself? But though this of itself would be amply sufficient to account for the temporary lull in the ravages of the disease, yet there is still another reason, even more immediate in its bearings on the matter. Previous to Jenner's discovery the system of inoculation introduced by Lady Wortley Montague, and which consisted in inoculating directly with the small-pox itself, had been largely in vogue, and the disease was thus spread broadcast throughout the land. But with the announcement of Jenner's panacea inoculation was made penal by the legislature, and it is thus obvious that fewer cases of the disease were to be found. This seems so very clear that it is somewhat startling to find that it is claimed for vaccination, that it stopped that which had previously been intentionally and freely disseminated, but which the law now made it penal to do so. A statement or argument so evidently fallacious as this could scarcely be used were there any at hand less easy of refutation. Again, although there was, shortly after the initiation of the vaccination theory, page 6 a temporary freedom from the disease in a virulent form, yet in 1818, five years before Jenner's death, there was a malignant epidemic, and in 1825, two years after his decease, yet another, described in Baron's "Life of Jenner" as being as severe as any of the preceding century. Thus therefore it is a mis-statement to say that there was really any decrease of the disease concurrently with the introduction of vaccination.

Yet another point may also be noted on this head. The calculations, miscalled statistics, which appeared in the parliamentary papers having reference to the national award granted to Jenner, are so obviously conjectural and fallacious that they may be looked upon as utterly worthless. For instance, it is stated that 45,000 died of small-pox in the days immediately preceding Jenner. Now these figures were reached in this way: It was ascertained that during one epidemic year 3500 died of the disease in London, and the same proportion, multiplied into a number which was supposed to be that of the population of England—but which nobody knew, for there was then no registrar—gave 45,000! This is certainly simple, but scarcely satisfactory. Again, Dr. Greenlow's tables of mortality were largely used in the "statistics." Now Dr. Greenlow put the mortality of London for some years at 80 per thousand. But this is an obvious impossibility, for the births could not be nearly half that number, so that in a very few years there would not be a soul left! Many similar fallacies meet the student of the arguments of the vaccination apologists.

I now come to a more important point. Without tracing the history of small-pox from the period (932 A.D.) when distinct mention of it can be first found, it is sufficient here to note that in an epidemic of the disease there was no increase in the total mortality, or general death-rate. This was especially the case before vaccination was made compulsory. For instance, in the epidemic of 1838, when the deaths from small-pox numbered 16,000, the total deaths from the principal zymotic diseases reached only 37,500; while in 1839, when the small-pox deaths were but 9000, the total from the same diseases was 38,500. All the returns show similar results, and the conclusion to be drawn from them is that all this class of disease has a common origin, and that the circumstances of the seasons, and the general condition of society with regard to cheap food, wholesome drink, adequate clothing and shelter, and general sanitary arrangements determine which particular form of outbreak would be the most ravaging. The rationale of small-pox in this light of course is that it is merely an effort of nature to expel certain poisonous matter bred of unnatural conditions, which would otherwise be a constant source of danger to the individual. A corroboration of this view is to be found in the well-known and oft-noticed fact that those who recover from a severe attack of small-pox, not induced artificially, are always remarkably healthy, and free from disease for a long time afterwards. This well-known fact ought to carry weight among the thoughtful, for there is no page 7 other explanation for it but that nature has thrown out inherited, or slowly acquired, poison that would have otherwise festered in the blood and kept the subject in a perpetual state of indifferent health. This of course is really the philosophy of all eruptive diseases, but it would appear that in small-pox nature finds alike her most violent, and most effective, cleanser of poisonous matter. Of course it is well-known to all that medical men can "cure" eruptions of this character; that is to say that by the introduction of some mineral or vegetable substance the threatened illness can be "warded" off! But we latter-day fanatics are bold enough to say that in this they simply drive it inwards, and that thus the diseased matter is compelled to accumulate, the vitality is lowered, and organic disease sets in, and broken health, followed by early death, is the result.

In the light of this philosophy of disease a perfectly healthy man—that is to say, one who has neither inherited any diseased taint, nor lived in conditions to acquire any, is perfectly proof against any epidemic, for his vitality is so great that he repels the approach of disease. To kill epidemics it is, therefore, only necessary to strike at the root, and, by improving the conditions, to diminish the chance of hereditary transmission. But, alas, this is but Utopian, for with them must go the doctors—their occupation would be gone, and who could hope to fight against a vested interest of such formidable dimensions!

The next point to be noted is that vaccination is directly answerable for an immense increase in nearly all inoculable diseases. Vaccination was made compulsory in England in 1853, again in 1867, and still more stringently in 1871. The last Parliamentary return to hand is complete only to 1875, but a few items of 1877 are also available. Now, in 1847, six years previous to the first enforcement of vaccination, the deaths of infants under one year from syphilis was at the rate of 472 per million of births; but the average for the seven years, 1868 to 1875, was 1260 per million, and in 1877 it was 1746 per million. For the same year the deaths at a similar age were, from scrofula, increased by 660 per million, or nearly threefold; from tabes, by 2270 per million, or nearly double; from skin disease, by 320 per million, or more than double; from erysipelas, by 240 per million, or an increase of one-fourth; from bronchitis, by 12,400 per million, or threefold; from diarrhœa, by 9220 per million, or nearly double; and from atrophy, by 3480 per million, or an increase of one-tenth. These figures are official. They show that since it was made compulsory to vaccinate every infant within three months of birth the mortality of children under one year had increased by no less than 30,000 per million, for eight causes alone. Not only so, but the increase has kept pace collaterally with the additional stringency of the enforcement. If these facts do not stand in the direct relation of cause and effect it may well be said that figures are altogether worthless for any purposes of demonstration. No doubt, other causes may be adduced as influencing the results, but it will be page 8 impossible for the utmost casuistry altogether to get rid of the awkwardness of the coincidence.^*

Furthermore, the death-rate of all ages had also increased very largely from these inoculable diseases. It may also be noted, that although cholera was extensively prevalent prior to 1855, since which it has been of rare occurrence and mild form, yet the total death-rate from 1854 to 1875 shows no diminution from that of the period 1838 to 1854; whereas there should have been indicated a large decrease, unless cholera has been replaced by some other disease equally destructive.

It will, perhaps, be said that though it may possibly be true that certain eruptive diseases may be induced by the use of lymph that has passed through millions upon millions of human organisms for eighty years, yet if calf-lymph be used such a thing would be without the range of possibility. This is the position of that section of the medical profession on which the facts and figures of the anti-vaccinators have made some impression. On the face of it it looks decidedly plausible, and no doubt has quieted the fears of many who had come to have some dread of vaccination. But here again dogma can be met with fact. Let Dr. Seaton speak. Dr. Seaton is the Medical Officer to the Privy Council, and it is on his reports that most of these Parliamentary papers are based. In Report 1870, p. 188, he says : "Dr. Worlomont informed me that, on more than one occasion, practitioners who had vaccinated children with some of his animal lymph had told him of symptoms following which, if they had not known the source of the lymph, they would have considered an imparted syphilis; and there had been lately lively discussions in France over some cases of syphilis appearing in children who had been vaccinated from a heifer, the local syphilitic symptoms manifesting themselves, it is said, at the vaccinated spots at the termination of the vaccine process—cases which, no doubt, had humanised lymph been used, would have been alleged to be cases of infection introduced by it." This is pretty clear on the point; but more recently a great stir has been made in the same country with regard to several cases of syphilis supervening on vaccination with lymph direct from the calf, though I cannot now put my hands on the papers containing the particulars.

But, syphilis apart, it is undeniable that animals are subject to disease as much as humans, and as it is admitted, even by the medical profession, that unless the lymph is quite "pure" it is quite possible to introduce the germs of other diseases, it cannot be inappropriate to ask whether the diseases that animals are subject to are desirable things to run the chance of receiving. Those who, like myself, have had much to do with cattle and page 9 horses, know full well that they are just as subject to disease as humans, and that their diseases are as malignant and as fatal. We have already a sufficiently large and majestic an assortment of diseases to satisfy the yearnings and ambition of the most tender-hearted and philanthropical of doctors, and the necessity of a further addition in the shape of foot-and-mouth disease, red water, farcy, blue-tongue, cattle plague, or African "sickness," is not altogether apparent.

This leads up to the question of "pure" lymph. The relevancy of the term "pure," in connection with that which of itself is malignant corruption, may of course be questioned by such absurd sticklers for consistency who have not been inoculated with the medical afflatus, but I cannot waste time on such trifling. Pure corruption certainly seems to the uninitiated a contradiction in terms, but it has received the sanction of the profession, and that ought to be enough for everyone. But how, it may be asked, can anything possibly be pure that has passed through no one knows how many million constitutions, and gathered on its course the germs of who shall say what? Doctors acknowledge that neither by the microscope, by the spectrum, or by chemical analysis can the pus matter of one eruptive disease be distinguished from that of another, when they are at the same stage of development. Neither can they tell good from bad, if it is possible for such distinctions to exist in such a matter. It might well be supposed that if good vaccine could be found it would be found for the Queen, and yet it is well known that when she was re-vaccinated erysipelas was induced, and she nearly lost her arm.

I now come to the most important point of all. It has been shown that Jenner at first declared that vaccination gave complete and permanent immunity from infection of small-pox, though he afterwards abandoned this position for another. The generally received theory is, that it is in some mysterious degree a protection against the disease, though, as has been pointed out, the theory is ignored in practice by both legislators and agitators. It is however on this ground—that of protecting those who are already theoretically protected—that compulsory vaccination is advocated. But what if it could be shown that vaccination, so far from decreasing small-pox, increased it to a very large extent. Would the doctors then discard it? No! for this is exactly what the figures of the Registrar-General of England do show, and if the doctors do not know it they ought to do so. It has already been stated that vaccination was first made compulsory in 1853, and more stringently enforced in 1867, and yet more in 1871. Since 1853 there have been three epidemics of the disease in England, the deaths during which were as follows :—first period, 1857-58-59, 14,244; second, 1863-64-65, 20,059; third, 1870-71-72, 44,840. Thus, though the increase of population from the first to the second epidemic was only seven per cent., the increase of small-pox was fifty per cent.; and while the increase of population from the second to page 10 third epidemic was ten per cent., the increase of small-pox was one hundred and twenty per cent. These are hard facts that no amount of apology or sophistry can get rid of. The figures can be presented in a still more startling way, thus: Deaths from small-pox in the first ten years after compulsory vaccination, 33,515; in the second ten years, 1860 to 1873, 70,458. In other countries the same results have been obtained. Vaccination is compulsory throughout Europe, except Spain and a few other countries, and has long been enforced with the utmost stringency. But in 1871 there died of small-pox in Prussia no less than 70,000; in Holland, 16,000; and in Hamburgh alone, 3,700, or a ninetieth part of the entire population! In Milan, 2,817, the number of patients classed as unvaccinated being only 278. In Paris the same year small-pox carried off 15,421, and in the whole of France about 200,000. Spain, which never adopted either inoculation or vaccination, should, if the theory of vaccination is of any value at all, have been at the top of the list, but as a matter of fact it is at the bottom, and the number is so small that the figures are not quoted in the Report.

A year or two ago there was published a pamphlet by Dr. L. J. Keller, Head Physician of the Imperial Austrian State Railway Company, which was compiled from the statistics of eighty doctors whom he had under him. The conclusions he arrived at were that vaccination makes the healthy rather more predisposed to small-pox than the unvaccinated and most unhealthy; and that the greatest mortality occurs under two years old. Many of these were of course unvaccinated, and the fact is seized upon by vaccinists as one in favour of their theory. But Dr. Keller says that the majority of these are the weakly whom they dare not vaccinate, and he clinches the matter by showing that his figures demonstrate the death-rate under two years to be greater among the vaccinated than among the unvaccinated. Leaving out those under two years old the death-rate from the disease was nearly equal among the vaccinated and the unvaccinated, with a slight reduction in favour of the latter. He concludes that the mortality in the different periods of life follows, both with the vaccinated and unvaccinated, the ordinary law of mortality of the human race at these respective periods, and that vaccination has no power to alter or affect this law of nature. He also brings into especial prominence the fact that has long been laid stress on by anti-vaccinators, viz : That only the healthy children are vaccinated, and the sickly ones as a rule are left unvaccinated, as the doctors dare not run the risk, and that if these die of small-pox the fact is placed to the debit of anti-vaccination, as they are returned as unvaccinated. These facts and conclusions, be it noted, are given by a professional vaccinator, and were forced upon him in the performance of his duties. They demonstrate that statistical tables of smallpox cases, in which age and the normal death-rate are left out, are quite worthless as regards a decision on the question as to what influence vaccination may have exercised.

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All the continental reports tell the same tale. In the Vienna Medical Journal, 1872, two hundred and sixty-three deaths are stated to have occurred among the re-vaccinated German soldiers in the 1871 epidemic; and none of them are without similar cases. In America it is the same, and Dr. Rowel, Health-officer of San Francisco, says that in the epidemic of 1868-69 "those vaccinated and re-vaccinated since the commencement of the epidemic were apparently thereby rendered more susceptible of the disease." In Philadelphia, in 1871-72, there were fifty cases of small-pox, after re-vaccination, in the municipal small-pox hospital.

Before the time of Jenner it was declared that in London, in epidemic years, a fourteenth of the total deaths resulted from small-pox. This statement, be it noted, was put forward by Jenner himself, and is given for what it is worth. If there be in vaccination the virtue claimed for it the deaths from smallpox in London in 1871, when vaccination was enforced with the utmost stringency, should be much less than a fourteenth of the total. Let us see. A fourteenth of the deaths of London in that year would give 5,745. What was the number of deaths from small-pox? 7,856! Truly a strange kind of stamping out!

I now turn to the hospital reports. It will be fully understood that these are not compiled by anti-vaccinators, and that every fact that can be turned to the credit of the vaccination theory will be so turned. To expect anything else would be to declare that doctors are not ordinary human beings, but a race invested with the infallible attributes which they themselves claim. But notwithstanding this, even these reports support the anti-vaccination view. In 1864, of the patients in the smallpox hospitals 84 per cent, were vaccinated. In 1871, out of 14,808 cases admitted into the small-pox hospitals of London, 11,174 were returned as vaccinated. This official statement surely does away with the protective theory, whatever else it may help to prove. It is true that the number of deaths among the unvaccinated is returned as much larger than among the vaccinated, but these figures will bear investigation. It is stated that thirty-three per cent. of the unvaccinated cases died. Now, this statement alone should at once give rise to doubt; for the celebrated Dr. Jurin, in 1723, before inoculation or vaccination were invented, estimated the deaths among small-pox cases at seventeen per cent. But it is also said that small-pox is not such a virulent disease now as it was during the last century. How, then, has the mortality among the unvaccinated risen from seventeen to thirty-three per cent? It looks suspicious on the very face of it. Let us go a little deeper into the matter. All cases admitted into the hospitals are returned as unvaccinated if the vaccination marks cannot be seen. But as a rule smallpox cases are never sent to the hospital until they are decidedly in a bad state. In 1871 the report says "394 deaths occurred within forty-eight hours after admission." Now anyone in the page 12 least acquainted with the appearance of a patient in a bad stage of small-pox must know that within forty-eight hours of death even a sabre cut would be obliterated. And yet all these cases would be returned as having no marks, and therefore being unvaccinated. An accidental occurrence in Glasgow fully corroborates this view, and is to be found in the Glasgow hospital report. The classification is made on the entry of the patient into the hospital, and Dr. Russell states that on one occasion, when the hospital was not crowded, he kept the patients until complete recovery, when, on examination, the marks in several cases which had been entered as unvaccinated were found to have re-appeared, and the hospital register was altered from unvaccinated to vaccinated. If this was found to be the case on the only occasion when such an examination was made, is it not probable that it is always the case? Nay, is it not à priori to be presumed that it is so?

But this is not all. In vaccination doctors have a theory to support, on which depends a large proportion of their income, and to expect them to take every pains to give prominence to the facts telling against the theory would be manifestly absurd. I do not say that they wilfully falsify the statistics, but I do say that the inborn tendency of thought, which must of necessity control them, leads them to take for a necessary fact that which investigation would show to be no fact at all. But I am sorry to say that, in some instances, the matter goes a good deal further than this. It is scarcely likely that many people would take the trouble to investigate the hospital statistics, with a view to corroborate, or otherwise, their alleged information. Such an undertaking must of necessity be both laborious and disagreeable. But on one or two occasions it has been done. In the Banbury Guardian one such investigation was reported. There occurred ten cases of small-pox in Banbury, out of which two died. These two were returned as unvaccinated, and the remaining eight that recovered as having been vaccinated, but so far back that the effects of the vaccine had died out. But the truth was found to be that all had been once perfectly vaccinated according to' Act of Parliament, and one of those that died, twice.

Another case occurred in Leeds. In 1871 there were 115 deaths returned as of unvaccinated people. Mr. John Pickering and Councillor Kenworthy enquired into about half these cases, and found that of these nine were entered as unvaccinated, all of whom had been vaccinated; eight entered unvaccinated which should have been entered unsuccessfully vaccinated; and four entered unvaccinated which should have been returned unfit. They also found a number of living people who had recovered and who had been returned as unvaccinated, but who had been vaccinated.

It has already been shown that those infants who are in such a delicate state of health that the doctors dare not vaccinate them, go to swell the numbers of the unvaccinated, and it remains to page 13 be told that those who are operated on any number of times, but do not "take," are also relegated to the same list. But the rising school says that these are just they who take most. It says that when the pustules appear readily on the arm it is merely an indication that the subject has sufficient vitality to repel the poison which is sought to be introduced into the system. But when the pustules do not appear, then it denotes that the patient has not the vital force to throw out the noxious matter, but that it sinks into the system and assimilates with the blood, leaving a chronic tendency to eruptive disease, a slowly waning vitality, and consequently a susceptibility to all manner of epidemics, and to all baneful conditions. These unfortunates, when they are attacked with small-pox, as they are sure to be when that disease is "about," are returned as unvaccinated, and used to bolster up the cause of vaccination; but as a matter of fact they are poisoned by the introduction of noxious matter, which saps their life, and without which they would run, at all events a chance, of long life.

In reference to this point the doctors' excuse for those dying who are undeniably vaccinated, is generally that the operation is inefficiently performed; that is to say that the right number of marks were not on the arms. But here again the figures are against the doctors. The percentage of deaths, in 1871, among those with four marks visible was 65, and when it is remembered that a large number are admitted in such a state that no marks could possibly be seen, the return is very significant. In the Homerton and Stockwell hospitals out of 3085 admissions 1800 admittedly had good marks. The same report says, in reference to those cases treated up to March 30th—14,400 in number—2700 of which were fatal, "If these had been properly vaccinated the duration of their stay in hospital should have been about 245,000 days." Now Jenner, in 1802, positively declared before Parliament that the properly vaccinated could not possibly take the disease, and that is why he received the national grant of £30,000. In the next place this statement candidly admits that "proper" vaccination is quite incapable of preventing people from occupying hospital wards twenty days apiece when attacked by small-pox.

One more point: During the seven years 1867-74 there was paid out of the poor-rates to public vaccinators, for so-called gratuitous vaccination, £544,723; and in addition parliament voted £43,428 to meritorious vaccinators. Is it likely that the profession would give up this sum without a struggle? It would be an ignoring of all the instincts of this selfish money-grubbing age. In addition to this it is to be remembered that this sum only represents a small portion of its income from vaccination, for the middle and upper classes do not patronise the public vaccinator. Dr. Collins, of Regent's Park, now an unflinching anti-vaccinator, admits that he made £500 a year by it.

What do all these facts point to? It has been shown that the doctors cannot agree as to what really is the efficacy of page 14 vaccination—and here it may not be amiss to quote Sir Thomas Watson, the Nestor of the medical world. He wrote, in June, 1878, in the Nineteenth Century—"It is too certain that one objection, really formidable, exists to vaccination—that the operation may in some few instances impart to the subject of it the poison of a hateful and destructive disease, peculiar to the human species, and the fruit and Nemesis of its vices . . . . I can readily sympathise with, and even applaud, a father who, with this presumed dread or misgiving in his mind, is willing to submit to multiplied judicial penalties rather than expose his child to the risk of an infection so ghastly."

It has been shown that in an epidemic of small-pox there is no increase in the general death-rate, or total mortality, demonstrating that the disease is merely one of the means that nature, under present conditions, uses to get rid of the poison which bad sanitary and dietary customs have in past times engendered.

It has been shown that vaccination is directly answerable for an increase of nearly all inoculable diseases, which the doctors overcome by recommending the use of "pure" lymph, and others of calf-lymph.

It has been shown that collaterally with the enforcement of the compulsory Acts there has been an immense increase in deaths from small-pox. This is the record of the "Registrar-General's returns, and therefore unassailable by any medical à priori objections, such as that offered when Earl Grosvenor took the small-pox : "Oh, it cannot be small-pox, for Dr. Jenner vaccinated him."

And it has been shown that the medical fraternity have a tremendous vested interest in the continuance of the vaccination system, and that therefore it cannot be looked upon as an impartial witness in the matter.

It remains only to quote the opinion of a few eminent men, in addition to those already quoted, as to compulsory vaccination.

Francis W. Newman : "To punish parents for struggling to keep their children's blood inviolate, is a form of tyranny unheard of until modern times, and emphatically as disgraceful as it is impious."

John Bright: "The law which inflicts penalty after penalty on a parent who is unwilling to have his child vaccinated is monstrous."

Moncure Conway : "Government has no more right-to compel a parent to inoculate his child with possibly tainted lymph, than to compel the child of a Protestant to go to a Catholic school."

Sir T. Chambers, Q.C., M.P., Recorder of London: "Compulsory vaccination is beyond all comparison the strongest form of 'parental government' that was ever introduced into this country."

Charles Bradlaugh: "It is the most oppressive piece of legislation enacted by any English-speaking Legislature since page 15 the passage of the notorious Fugitive Slave Law in the United States."

W. E. Gladstone: "I view with misgiving all new aggressions upon private liberty. The inequality of the Vaccination Law is a strong reason for doing what we can to mitigate its severity."

Herbert Spencer : "I wish I had known some time since that the Vaccination persecution had been carried so far, as I might have made use of the fact. It would have served farther to enforce the parallel between this medical popery, which men think so defensible, and the religious popery they think so indefensible."

J. W. Pease, M.P.: "Vaccination slaughters children in a wholesale way."

P. A. Taylor, M.P. : "I maintain that all the elements justifying compulsion on the part of the State are wanting in this instance of vaccination."

Dr. W. J. Collins, M.R.C.S., Esq, L.R.C.P. Edin. L.M., 20 years Vaccine Physician in Edinburgh and London : "If I had the desire to describe one-third of the victims ruined by vaccination the blood would stand still in your veins."

Dr. C. T. Pearce, M.D, M.R.C.S, England, for many years the associate of Sir W. Jenner and Sir H. Thompson, and who has devoted a quarter of a century to the special study of the disease: "Vaccination and small-pox stand in the relation of cause and effect, and bear a corresponding ratio the one to the other."

Compulsory vaccination is from every point of view thoroughly indefensible. The only ground that can be taken in favour of compulsion by the State, is that of complete unanimity of sentiment with regard to the matter affected by the action whose adoption is at issue. When any section of society looks upon the theories sought to be enforced as fallacious, then their enforcement becomes a tyranny. For instance, compulsory education is justifiable, because it is universally admitted that ignorance is prejudicial both to the individual and to the community, and no one could be found to deny it. But the enforcement of sectarian dogmas is unjustifiable, because certain sections of society look upon these dogmas as fallacious. In the eloquent words of Moncure Conway: "When against any law a protest arises, made in the same public interest as law itself; when it has no private or selfish purpose, and appeals only to fact and argument; when, though in a small minority, it has sufficient weight of intelligence on its side to confuse the judgment of good citizens; then no law can remain just which meets that protest and argument with brute force." So it is with vaccination. A section of society, ever increasing in numbers, and in England, the Continent, and America, gradually drawing to it so me of the brightest minds of the day, sees in vaccination nothing but dogma and fallacy, and to compel them to undergo it in pain of imprisonment is manifestly the worst form of tyranny.

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In this pamphlet I have made no special reference to this or the neighbouring colonies, because I have no data to go upon. So far as I can find out nothing has been published in regard to the matter. New South Wales is, I believe, the only one of them in which vaccination is not in some way compulsory. It is also the one most liable to "infection," Sydney being the port of entry for all vessels from eastern Asia, Polynesia, and America. This being so one would naturally think, if there be any truth in the doctors' theories, that small-pox would be more rife than in the adjacent colonies. But it is nothing of the kind; New South Wales has been as free from the pest as any of them, and that in spite of Sydney being without doubt the dirtiest and least sanitarily protected of any city of its age in the civilised world. How long it will remain so is not a question of vaccination or non-vaccination; but one of good drainage, good water, airy streets, roomy tenements, clean roads, pure water-frontages, and such matters. Until Sydney is to a large extent pulled down and the streets made wider, the houses larger and more airy; until the legislature forbid building in the suburbs on small allotments and without wide streets; until the harbour is purified; until the drainage is carried to a distance and deodorised; until water out of something else than a swamp is supplied, Sydney may at any moment look for an epidemic of small-pox, or cholera, or typhoid fever, or some other of nature's fruit grown from the seed of criminal neglect. But this will not prevent the doctors administering their nostrums in the arrogant presumption of pretending to control the laws by which they themselves are controlled. Nor, when the epidemic dies out of itself, after having killed all whose constitutions were not proof against it, will it prevent them claiming for their efforts the credit of stopping that which they did all in their power to increase.

Be that as it may, I trust I have brought home to a few of those who have released their faculties from the leading-strings of the past, and dare to do their own thinking, that vaccination is but another of the dogmatic shibboleths that have held us in bondage for so long, and that so far from being the protection it is pretended, by a largely subsidised class, to be, it is one of the most prolific sources of disease which we have to encounter in our journey through life.