SMALLPOX DISPLACED AND REPLACED.
DR. WATT’S DISCOVERY--GLASGOW, 1813.
Addressing the House of Commons in 1878, Sir Thomas Chambers said,
“You cannot show that Vaccination has reduced deaths, or saved a
single life. There may be no Smallpox, but the disappearance of
Smallpox is by no means equivalent to a reduction of mortality.”
M.P.’s were astonished and incredulous; but ignorantly. The fact
is incontestable; and Dr. Robert Watt of Glasgow had the signal
distinction of detecting and setting it forth in the year 1813.[269]
Watt was writing a treatise on Chincough, otherwise Whooping Cough,
and in the course of his work made a careful examination of the
registers of death in Glasgow to ascertain how far it was true
“that the disease was more fatal some years than others; that it
was more dangerous at a particular age; and that the female sex
suffered more from it than the male;” and, from the outset of his
investigation, “was struck with the immense numbers carried off
yearly by the Smallpox.” He might well be struck; for Glasgow was a
rare place for Smallpox, as appears from the following statement
compiled from Watt’s Tables--
DEATHS IN GLASGOW FOR TEN YEARS, 1783-1792.
Year. From Measles. Whooping | Children Children Total,
Smallpox. Cough. | under under all
| Two. Ten. Ages.
1783 155 66 153 | 479 719 1413
1784 425 1 13 | 671 877 1623
1785 218 -- 34 | 576 744 1552
1786 348 2 173 | 706 941 1622
1787 410 23 57 | 746 1016 1802
1788 399 1 17 | 770 1059 1982
1789 366 23 45 | 794 1058 1753
1790 336 33 177 | 903 1236 1866
1791 607 4 117 | 984 1367 2146
1792 202 58 68 | 664 902 1848
---- --- --- | ---- ---- ------
Total, 3466 211 854 | 7293 9919 17,607
The succeeding ten years, 1793-1802, repeat much the same tale,
with, however, a diminution of mortality in an increasing
population, and a decrease in smallpox with an increase in measles
and whooping-cough: thus--
DEATHS IN GLASGOW FOR TEN YEARS, 1793-1802.
Year. From Measles. Whooping | Children Children Total,
Smallpox. Cough. | under under all
| Two. Ten. Ages.
1793 389 5 112 | 807 1126 2045
1794 235 7 51 | 553 759 1445
1795 402 46 180 | 761 1048 1901
1796 177 92 60 | 562 797 1369
1797 354 5 76 | 586 884 1662
1798 309 3 98 | 642 864 1603
1799 370 43 95 | 783 1105 1906
1800 257 21 27 | 545 716 1550
1801 245 8 125 | 494 766 1434
1802 156 168 90 | 544 985 1770
---- --- --- | ---- ---- ----
Total, 2894 398 914 | 6277 9050 16,685
Considering these figures said Watt--
I remarked that the deaths by Smallpox were chiefly in infancy;
hence the deaths under two or three years of age bore a very
great proportion to the whole deaths in the city. Taking an
average of several years, I found that more than half the human
species died before they were ten years of age, and that of this
half more than a third died of the Smallpox; so that nearly a
fifth part of all that were born alive perished by this dreadful
malady.
Watt meant of course the human species as exhibited in Glasgow,
of whom more than half died before the age of ten, and a fifth of
smallpox. What was true for a time of Glasgow smallpox was not even
true of Edinburgh, much less of the whole earth.
Variolation was practised in Glasgow, but to what extent appears
to be unknown. Certain, however, it is that smallpox was as little
dreaded as are other calamities accounted common and unavoidable.
Indeed many were not unwilling to subject their offspring to the
disease at seasons supposed to be favourable on the principle of
“getting a bad job over.” Then, too, the mass of the population was
disposed as if by design for the generation of febrile ailments.
Tall buildings forming narrow lanes, wynds, or closes issued
like so many rents or fissures from the leading thoroughfares.
These buildings were divided into flats packed with humanity from
basement to attic. Air and light were treated as superfluities.
Water there was none, save what was brought from wells; and middens
received the slops and refuse often shot from the windows. Life
in a Glasgow wynd in former days is indescribable, yea almost
inconceivable; yet in such wynds multitudes passed their existence,
conscious of no hardship, recognising nothing better, and withal
characterised by many virtues. Bearing such conditions in mind,
the vital statistics of Glasgow excite no surprise: the wonder
is that the death-rate did not draw nearer to extermination. As
for smallpox, how could a family resident in a flat in a noisome
Glasgow close at the end of last century escape smallpox, if
smallpox were prevalent? To them smallpox lay in fate, and was
accepted on the same terms as wind and weather, summer and winter.
Novelties have always had a ready welcome in Glasgow, and when
cheap and easy salvation from smallpox was proclaimed, there was a
rush for it. Smallpox abated: vaccination had the credit: and faith
was justified. Considering the devastation smallpox had wrought
among the young, Watt says--
I began to reflect how different the case must be now; and to
calculate the great saving of human life that must have arisen
from the Vaccine Inoculation. At this time [1813] above 15,000
had been inoculated publicly at the Faculty Hall, and perhaps
twice or thrice that number in private practice. In eight years
[1805-12] little more than 600 had died in Glasgow of Smallpox;
whereas in 1784 the deaths by that disease alone amounted to 425,
and in 1791 to 607; which, on both occasions, exceeded the fourth
of the whole deaths in the city for the year.
It seemed reasonable to infer that since the mortality from
smallpox had so largely declined, fewer children must have died;
but to Watt’s astonishment the facts did not answer to the logic.
He writes--
To ascertain the real amount of this saving of infantile life, I
turned up one of the later years, and by accident that of 1808,
when to my utter astonishment, I found that still a half, or
more than a half, perished before the tenth year of their age! I
could hardly believe the testimony of my senses, and therefore
began to turn up other years, when I found that in all of them
the proportion was less than in 1808; but still on taking an
average of several years, it amounted to nearly the same thing
as at any former period during the last thirty years. This was a
discovery I by no means expected, and how it could have come to
pass appeared to me inexplicable.
We shall better understand Watt’s perplexity over smallpox reduced
and death unaffected, if we set before us the table of mortality
for the decade during which vaccination was brought into practice
in Glasgow.
DEATHS IN GLASGOW FOR TEN YEARS, 1803-1812.
Year. From Measles. Whooping | Children Children Total,
Smallpox. Cough. | under under all
| Two. Ten. Ages.
1803 194 45 60 | 610 940 1860
1804 213 27 52 | 583 863 1670
1805 56 90 129 | 616 884 1671
1806 28 56 162 | 517 786 1620
1807 97 16 85 | 595 899 1806
1808 51 787 92 | 1079 1775 2623
1809 159 44 259 | 782 1187 2124
1810 28 19 147 | 765 1027 2111
1811 109 267 62 | 769 1274 2342
1812 78 304 103 | 804 1278 2348
---- ---- ---- | ---- ------ ------
Total, 1013 1655 1151 | 7120 10,913 20,175
To make the facts clear let us bring the results of the three
decades together--
Decade. From Measles. Whooping | Children Children Total
Smallpox. Cough. | under under Deaths,
| Two. Ten. All Ages.
1783-1792 3466 211 854 | 7293 9,919 17,607
1793-1802 2894 398 914 | 6277 9,050 16,685
1803-1812 1013 1655 1151 | 7120 10,913 20,175
Before making any commentary on these remarkable figures, it may
be well to attend to what Watt had to say concerning them. He was
satisfied that vaccination arrested smallpox, but it was plain
that it did not arrest death, and he felt bound to find some
explanation--
From every circumstance that has come under my observation, the
efficacy of Vaccine Inoculation appeared certain. The experience
of pretty extensive practice had confirmed me fully in this
opinion. But still the question recurred, how are we to account
for the same, or nearly the same, number of deaths under ten
years of age? As no new disease has appeared, the deficiency
occasioned by the want of Smallpox must have been made up by a
greater mortality among the other diseases of children. Has it
been equally divided among them, or has a greater share fallen to
some than to others? To solve this question is the chief object
of my inquiry.
To ascertain the fact, he divided the thirty years, 1783-1812, into
five periods of six years each, and thus set forth the average
proportionate mortalities--
Years. From Measles. Whooping | Children Children Total
Smallpox. Cough. | under under Deaths,
| Two. Ten. All Ages.
1783-1788 19·55 ·93 4·51 | 39·40 53·48 9,994
1789-1794 18·22 1·17 5·13 | 42·38 58·07 11,103
1795-1800 18·70 2·10 5·36 | 38·82 54·48 9,991
1801-1806 8·90 3·92 6·12 | 33·50 52·03 10,034
1807-1812 3·90 10·76 5·57 | 35·89 55·69 13,354
The first three of these periods, 1783-1800, had passed before
the Vaccine Inoculation could have had any influence [observes
Watt]; in the fourth, 1801-1806, it had nearly reached its
maximum; and in the last, 1807-1812, it may be said to have been
pretty fully established, perhaps as much so as in any other city
in the empire.
Vaccination having been introduced to Glasgow to save life, Where
was the salvation? Smallpox had fallen off, but if its victims
were merely assigned to other modes of death, where was the
advantage? Watt continues--
The first thing which strikes the mind on surveying the preceding
Table, is the vast diminution in the proportion of deaths by
the Smallpox--a reduction from 19·55 to 3·90 per cent.; but the
increase in the Measles column is still more remarkable--an
increase from ·93 to 10·76 per cent. In Smallpox we have the
deaths reduced to nearly a fifth of what they were twenty-five
years ago, whilst in the same period, the deaths by Measles have
increased more than eleven times. This is a fact so striking,
that I am astonished it has not attracted the notice of older
practitioners.
The greatest number of deaths from Smallpox in any one month
during the last thirty years was 114 in October, 1791. In
the following December they were 113. These are the only two
instances in thirty years when the deaths by Smallpox amounted to
100 in a month. But these were slight visitations when compared
with the ravages which have been committed in an equally short
time by Measles. In May, 1803, the deaths by Measles alone
amounted to 259, in June to 260, and in July to 118. In December,
1811, they amounted to 161, and in the January following to 130.
What an amazing difference when we compare these numbers with
433, the sum of all the deaths by Measles in eighteen years
preceding 1801! In the last five years 1430 have died of Measles
in Glasgow.
This prodigious increase in the mortality from Measles was
naturally referred by some observers to the practice of
Vaccination, and Watt held there was ground for the assumption
inasmuch as when Smallpox preceded Measles it made Measles milder--
When Measles was so prevalent and fatal in 1808, I was often
told that it was owing to the Vaccine Inoculation; but this I
considered an idle tale, the invention of those who were hostile
to Cowpox. I could readily admit that more must die of Measles
than formerly; for some of the weak and unhealthy, who would have
died of Smallpox (saved from Smallpox) would fall a sacrifice to
Measles; but I could not then go farther.
But however novel and strange the opinion may appear, it must be
admitted that while Smallpox was in full force, it had the power
of modifying and rendering Measles mild; and now that Smallpox is
in great measure expelled, Measles is gradually coming to occupy
the same ground. I am sorry to make this statement, but the
facts, at least with regard to Glasgow, are too strong to admit
of doubt....
That Measles should have been modified by Smallpox is rendered
highly probable by the manner in which the Vaccine Disease
prevents Smallpox or renders it so mild as to be without the
smallest danger. May not Smallpox have a similar effect in
relation to Measles?
When Smallpox was in full force, few children escaped, and most
of those who had Smallpox and Measles had Smallpox first. This,
I believe, will have been the case with more than nine-tenths
of the community. Still, however, as Measles came round, it
occasionally had precedence of Smallpox, and it was perhaps
chiefly among such patients that it proved fatal. In looking over
the registers of former years, I find the deaths by Measles were
generally among very young children.
He was even disposed to believe that Smallpox, on the whole,
exercised a beneficial influence in the eradication of latent
disease--
An opinion has prevailed with some, that Vaccination does
positive harm by infusing peccant or vicious humour into
the constitution. I do not see the smallest ground for this
hypothesis; but that Smallpox does good to those who survive
the disease by rendering the system insusceptible of other
infections, or by rendering them milder when incurred, must, I
think, be admitted.... I do not presume that the constitution
is improved by Smallpox, but perhaps by eradicating certain
unobserved deviations from health, which, if not early removed by
the accession of some acute disease, would have proved the seeds
of early mortality by gaining a deeper hold of the constitution
before Measles and other epidemics of later appearance came round.
In this point of view, we are not to consider Smallpox as
peculiarly fatal, but fatal merely as having the start of
some other diseases. Measles, Chincough, Croup, and Scarlet
Fever would have proved equally fatal had any of them occurred
first.... It is only on this principle that we can explain how
it happened that thirty years ago not one in a hundred died of
Measles, whereas now one in ten dies. Thirty years ago as few
escaped Measles as now, but before they were affected they had
generally passed through Smallpox, by which the secondary disease
was so modified as to be almost completely divested of danger.
Watt, it will be observed, treats smallpox throughout as a malady
of childhood; thus confirming Monro’s observation in 1765, that
“the inhabitants of Scotland generally have smallpox in their
infancy or childhood, very few adults being seen in the disease.”
From the preceding excerpts, it is not difficult to comprehend
Watt’s position. He was persuaded of the prophylaxy of
vaccination; he was satisfied that it had reduced smallpox in
Glasgow; but, to his astonishment, he discovered that it had not
reduced the general death-rate; and that in so far as smallpox
had been displaced, other ailments, and specially measles, had
maintained the tale of fatality.
The discovery that the fall in smallpox was compensated for by a
rise in deaths from other diseases was a remarkable discovery,
the importance of which is as yet far from appreciated. Watt was
however at fault in attributing the decline of smallpox in Glasgow
to vaccination; and in failing to inquire whether the phenomenon
had any relation to vaccination whatever. He is the best scientific
demonstrater who most completely exhausts the possibilities to
the contrary of what he seeks to establish. Supposing vaccination
to be as powerful against smallpox as its promoters averred, the
causes in Glasgow was not commensurate with the effect. Nowhere was
vaccination more practised. 15,000 were vaccinated at the Faculty
Hall, says Watt, “_and perhaps twice or thrice that number in
private practice_”--a loose and questionable statement. The 15,000
operated on at the Faculty Hall in the course of ten years were the
poor, the vast majority in Glasgow and elsewhere, and the chief
sufferers from smallpox. The assumed “twice or thrice that number”
were those who employed their own medical men--a luxury less common
then than now. The population of Glasgow approached 100,000, and
it is obvious that the larger part must have lived outside the
fortification of the Jennerian rite.
But admitting that all, or nearly all, in Glasgow were vaccinated
who had not had smallpox, still that would afford no proof for what
was claimed. Watt was cautious, and held closely by his Glasgow
evidence, content to have it taken for what it was worth; but
had he ranged wider, he would have discovered that the fall in
smallpox extended over Europe, and was as well marked in Vienna as
in Glasgow, in Stockholm as in London, in Italy as in Denmark. As
in Glasgow the credit for the fall was claimed for vaccination,
but the fall had set in before vaccination was heard of, and
extended over populations to which vaccination had no application.
Indeed Watt allows that the fatality of smallpox had begun to
decline and that of measles to increase prior to the conveyance of
the Jennerian salvation to Glasgow; but he failed to discern the
significance of the fact. So too in other cities where smallpox
fell off: the death-rate did not fall off; but, as in Glasgow, was
kept up by cognate varieties of fever.
As concerns Watt, we have the advantage of some notes upon his
“remarkable treatise” by Dr. William Farr in the _Thirtieth Annual
Report of the Registrar-General_, 1869. Having given an abstract of
Watt’s results, Dr. Farr observes of his discovery of displaced and
replaced mortality--
This is an important point in pathology; and it must be admitted
that although there were defects in his data, Dr. Watt succeeds
in showing (1) that Smallpox was one of the greatest causes of
death in Glasgow down to the year 1800, (2) that the deaths by
Smallpox were reduced to a fifth of their original number by
Vaccination,[270] and (3) that the children died in nearly the
same numbers as before, but of other forms of disease.
Glasgow has always been famous for statistics, and these
unfortunately show an increase of the mortality of children. Thus
in the five years 1821-25 the mortality of boys under five years
of age was 8·08; in 1831-35 it was 9·78. In the year 1865 the
mortality of boys in Glasgow was 11·48, of girls, 10·36. These
recent returns confirm the principle. Smallpox is no longer so
fatal as it was before Vaccination was introduced; in Glasgow it
caused in the year 1864 no longer 20 but 2 in 100 deaths--only
180 in 6054 deaths, that is 3 per cent. of the deaths under five
years of age; yet the mortality of children is certainly as high,
probably higher, than it was in the last 10 years of the last
century.
Compulsory Vaccination in England has reduced further the
fatality of Smallpox, but since 1853 other diseases have so
prevailed as to counter-balance the gain under this head. The
mortality of children has not declined in a corresponding degree.
With confirmation under such authority, it is needless to enforce
the validity and importance of Watt’s discovery. Dr. Farr is
pleased to ascribe the subsidence of smallpox alike in England and
Glasgow to vaccination, but he makes no effort to prove his case:
indeed the effort might have led him to recognise his mistake.
Referring to scarlet-fever, he shows how from a mild it has become
a severe affliction--
Sydenham (d. 1689) describes simple Scarlatina distinctly: he
does not refer to the throat affections, and says the patient
can only die by the doctor’s default. Joseph Frank describes the
disease as _now_ the most dreadful scourge in Europe.
If then scarlet fever has of itself acquired this terrible
intensity and predominance, why should it be thought incredible
that smallpox of itself should undergo correspondent mitigation
and diminution? Or, is it to be argued that vaccination has
extinguished smallpox to revive as scarlet fever?
Dr. Farr proceeds to observe--
It is singular that Dr. Watt, evidently a practitioner of great
sagacity, does not at all advert to the wretched sanitary
condition in which the increasing population of Glasgow lived at
the time he was writing.
It is the observation of Dr. Farr that is singular. At the time
when Watt wrote there was no clear conception of the relation of
condition to disease. Jenner was always writing about smallpox, yet
there is not a hint in any of his papers as to its development in
filth and stench. His own residence was a pesthouse, but it never
entered into his head to ask, Why? Let us avoid anachronism. Those
whose memory or reading extends to the cholera epidemic of 1831-32
will know, that it was regarded as an inscrutable visitation toward
which humble submission was the proper attitude. A letter of
Collins, the artist, to the Rev. R. A. Thorpe, 26th November, 1831,
correctly expresses the common feeling. Referring to the Cholera
and the Reform Bill, he says--
Of the two scourges now afflicting us, I know not which is the
worse, but I _do_ know that we have fallen into the hands of God
in both cases, and not before we deserved it.[271]
I myself recollect the dismay the Combes excited in Scotland
when they began to teach that we were largely responsible for
our ailments, and that sickness and sanctity were an unwholesome
alliance; and how a pious physician remarked, when the prevalence
of typhus in Glasgow had been denounced as disgraceful to the
authorities, “We have learnt the truth in another school, and would
shudder to impeach the Divine prerogative in life or in death.”
What Watt really thought of smallpox is to be found in a passage of
his treatise which Dr. Farr must have overlooked. He says--
We may it seems, by the permission of Divine Providence, deprive
death of some of its apparently most efficient means, but
deprived of these, new means are discovered, or the old improved.
I cannot help quoting the following passage from Dr. Woolcombe as
somewhat prophetic of this general result. Says he--
“May not the discovery of the Cowpox, if it should ultimately
effect the extermination of the Smallpox, which it may do when
the prejudices of mankind shall permit, be welcomed rather on
account of its influence in diminishing human suffering, than
on account of its effect in diminishing human mortality? Since
disease is one of the appointed checks to excessive population,
and the plan of Providence in the creation of human life requires
the termination of the existence of one-third of its creatures
before they have attained the age of two years, it may be doubted
whether the annihilation of so efficient an instrument as
Smallpox can be admitted without the substitution of some other
equally destructive malady. The substituted malady may indeed
be productive of less collateral affliction than the loathsome
distemper whose place it supplies. But granting that no direct
substitute should arise, it will not follow that disease in
general will be deprived of its accustomed share in checking
population; and if it be not, the only difference will be in the
proportion of victims submitted to other disorders. The infant
rescued from Smallpox, may be rescued only to perish in childhood
by Measles or Scarlatina, or be preserved to swell the list of
youthful victims to the insatiate maw of Consumption.”[272]
Such was the manner in which Watt dealt with the problem of
mortality. Sanitation had no place in his consideration. It was,
he thought, the design of Providence to limit population, and if
children were saved from smallpox, they would be cut off otherwise;
and the statistics of Glasgow confirmed the opinion. Smallpox had
abated, but funerals were numerous as ever. The uniformity of the
mortality we admit, but no longer ascribe it to Providence intent
on the limitation of population. If children die, it is not of
fate, but from the ignorance, or indifference, or wickedness of
those who are responsible for them.
Still some may object, “If by vaccination or any other means
smallpox is got rid of, Should we not to that extent save life?”
The answer is, No. Life is only extensible in so far as improvement
is effected in the conditions of life. Forms of disease are subject
to modification; they are probably convertible and interchangeable;
one form comes as another goes; but conditions remaining the same,
the crop of death is equal. Hence Mr. Edwin Chadwick’s advice--
Keep your eye on the death-rate. Let nothing short of its
reduction satisfy you. There may be no startling outbreak of this
fever or of that fever; but if the death-rate is unabated, there
can be no improvement that ought to satisfy you. The death-rate
is the test of sanitary progress. Keep therefore your eye on the
death-rate.
Thus it was that though smallpox subsided in Glasgow no lives
were saved; for no change for the better having taken place in
the condition of the inhabitants, the means of death were merely
transferred to other agencies. As Dr. Farr observes--
The Glasgow victims were gathered together from all quarters,
from the Highlands, from Ireland, and from elsewhere; they were
lodged in conditions unsuitable to human life.... To render them
unassailable by the matter of Smallpox was not enough, for it
left them exposed to the other forms of disease. Thus in a garden
where the flowers are neglected, to keep off thistle-down merely
leaves the ground open to the world of surrounding weeds.
To operate on mortality, protection against every one of the
fatal zymotic diseases is required; otherwise the suppression of
one disease-element opens the way to another.
Dr. Farr thus exactly expresses what I wish to enforce. Whether
smallpox prevail or disappear is of little importance. What is of
importance is the prevalence of disease and death, and not the
presence or absence of any of their special factors when the total
result is constant and the measure of violated physiological laws.
It is true that Dr. Farr recognises a virtue in vaccination, but
on much the same terms that obeisance is rendered to a fetish.
Vaccination might be struck out of his arguments without affecting
his conclusions. How, for example, could the facts with their
rationale be better stated than in these his words?--
Out of 1000 born in Liverpool, 518 children were destroyed in the
first ten years of their life; some by Smallpox, many by Measles,
Scarlatina, Whooping Cough, many by Typhus and Enteric Fever;
one disease prevailing in one year, another disease prevailing
in another; _but still yielding the like fatal results_. This
represents what Dr. Watt found in Glasgow long ago. Out of 1000
children born in London, 351 died under ten years of age by
zymotic diseases and other causes; the deaths are less by 167
than the deaths in Liverpool. How much less is the loss of life
by these diseases in the healthy districts of England! There,
out of 1000, only 205 children die in the first ten years of
life. The enormous difference cannot be ascribed to Vaccination,
as common in town as in country; the protection of life against
Smallpox alone leaves it still at the mercy of the dangerous
diseases of the insalubrious city.
Death from disease in insalubrious circumstances is but part of
the mischief. Those who survive find their energies enfeebled and
depressed in the struggle for survival. The time must surely come
when smallpox and all allied forms of disease will be accounted
discreditable and intolerable, and when their occurrence will be
taken for notes of warning and command to search for and root out
their causes. Then, too, magical preventives and palliatives and
medical cures will have a very different place in the popular
imagination.
* * * * *
Jenner read Watt’s pamphlet, and, _more suo_, the wretched creature
failed to discern its scope and significance, seeing in it a
malevolent aggression upon his interest in vaccination. He wrote to
Moore from Cheltenham, 6th December, 1813--
You probably may not have seen a pamphlet lately published
by Dr. Watt, as there is nothing in its title that develops
its purport or _evil tendency_. Measles, it seems, has been
extremely fatal in Glasgow for the last four or five years among
children, and during this period Vaccination has been practised
almost universally. Previously to this, Measles was considered a
mild disease. Hence Dr. Watt infers that Smallpox is a kind of
_preparative_ for Measles, rendering the disease more mild. In
short, he says, or seems to say, that we have gained nothing by
the introduction of Cowpox; for that Measles and Smallpox have
now changed places with regard to their fatal tendency. Is not
this very shocking? Here is a new and unexpected twig shot forth
for the sinking Anti-Vaccinist to cling to.[273]
Observe, the truth of Dr. Watt’s evidence was passed over! Inasmuch
as it did not tend to the glory of vaccination, it was “evil,” and
it was “shocking.” At a later date Baron assumed the same line,
saying--
Notwithstanding the proofs of the power of Vaccination in
diminishing the mortality from Smallpox, it has been a question
whether _infantile_ mortality has been diminished; it having
been supposed that the beneficial effects of Vaccination were
countervailed by a greater mortality in the other diseases of
children. This very discouraging statement was published by Dr.
Watt, of Glasgow; and the opinion, which was hastily adopted and
unwisely promulgated, has unquestionably had a great effect in
retarding the progress of Vaccination. It, unfortunately, gave
countenance to some of the worst prejudices of those who were
opposed to the practice.[274]
Here again we see no attempt made to disprove Watt’s statement,
whilst its mischievousness was assumed because it was
“discouraging,” and lent “countenance to some of the worst
prejudices of those who were opposed to vaccination!” Truth is
the best of all things--except when it spoils business. Then it
becomes “evil,” and “shocking,” and “gives countenance to the worst
prejudices.”
FOOTNOTES:
[269] _An Inquiry into the Relative Mortality of the Principal
Diseases of Children, and the numbers who have died under Ten Years
of Age in Glasgow during the last Thirty Years._ By Robert Watt,
M.D., Lecturer on the Theory and on the Practice of Medicine in
Glasgow. Glasgow, 1813. Pp. 64.
[270] An inference disputed for reasons given.
[271] _Memoirs of William Collins, R.A._ By his Son. Vol. ii. p. 3.
[272] _Remarks on the Frequency and Fatality of Different
Diseases._ 1808.
[273] Baron’s _Life of Jenner_, vol. ii. p. 392.
[274] _Ibid._, vol. ii. p. 248.