THE NATIONAL VACCINE ESTABLISHMENT--1808-40.
We shall now return to the current of our Story, nor turn aside
until it is brought to a conclusion in the enactment of Compulsory
Vaccination.
With £3000 a-year the National Vaccine Establishment was
constituted by the House of Commons, on 9th June, 1808; sixty
members voting for the project, and five against.
The reasons for the institution were somewhat complicated. The
Royal Jennerian Society had been wrecked by Jenner’s jealousy and
intrigue. The working and subscribing members seceded with Dr.
Walker, and set up the London Vaccine Institution; and a variety
of ornamental and influential folk, who paid little and did less,
found themselves with Jenner on their hands, exigent, impecunious,
and helpless, and they publicly committed to the patronage and
diffusion of vaccination.
It was an awkward situation, and two operations for relief became
necessary: first, to dispose of Jenner; and second, to escape from
the maintenance of vaccination.
The first was effected by inducing the House of Commons to vote
Jenner £20,000, and the second by the institution of the National
Vaccine Establishment. Thus dexterously, fashionable and medical
London contrived to get rid of Jenner and vaccination on terms
satisfactory to all concerned.
The early furore for vaccination had spent itself. Scepticism had
thriven by experience. Many of the vaccinated had taken smallpox,
and explanations and excuses were becoming exhausted. It was easy
to claim the benefit of mistakes when the operators were amateurs;
but when the failures were the work of Jenner and his certified
associates, it was hard for faith to hold out. Spurious cowpox
served to account for many disasters; but when Jenner, pressed to
define spurious cowpox, was driven to confess its non-existence,
and that, when he had spoken of it, he had only meant any irregular
action of cowpox on the persons of the vaccinated, it is easy to
imagine how people who had respect for themselves were pleased to
drop out of the connection. They might not care to express all they
suspected, nor to proclaim their credulity, but it was a welcome
deliverance to be no longer responsible for a practice and a
character grown so questionable. On John Bull’s broad back was laid
the burden.
In the project of the National Vaccine Establishment there was
an explicit concession to the scepticism of the time. One of its
purposes was alleged to be _Investigation_. Lord Henry Petty, in
recommending the measure in the House of Commons, observed--“The
evidence as to the infallible efficacy of vaccination is
confessedly incomplete; and it is highly desirable that the truth
should be ascertained by public inquiry, rather than by societies
whose conductors are liable to the imputation of mercenary
motives.” Jenner bitterly resented the indignity implied in placing
vaccination under investigation. He held, and in a sense justly,
that it was too late to speak of investigation when the reality of
his discovery had been attested in the public honours and rewards
conferred upon him. “Alas!” he exclaimed, “poor Vaccinia, how art
thou degraded!” He was still further outraged by his exclusion
from the Board of the Establishment, on the ground that the public
might have assurance of impartiality. How much sincerity there was
in the profession, I do not pretend to divine; it is sufficient to
point out that matters had come to such a pass with vaccination
that it was considered expedient to conciliate the taxpayers with
the promise of inquiry for their money. Plainly the enthusiastic
certainty of 1802 had given place to a widely different sentiment
in 1808.
There were, however, wheels within wheels. “You may take it for
granted,” said a Radical of those days, “that every vote of public
money has an object in excess of the ostensible one, and covers
jobs big or jobs little.” And so it was in the case before us. The
discomfited residue of the Royal Jennerian Society had influence
with the Government to take over their smashed-up enterprise;
but their solicitation might have been ineffectual, had not the
Government seen a way of providing for a certain claimant in the
course of the operation. Sir John Moore was serving his country
in the Peninsula; he had friends at the sources of power; and he
had a brother named James, surgeon to the Life Guards, for whom
a comfortable berth was wanted. Let us make Moore, they said,
Director of this new Establishment, with a salary of £200 a-year;
and the thing was done. Investigation was promised, Cowpox was
endowed, and Moore was provided for.
Jenner had actively promoted the formation of the Establishment,
under the conviction that he should be its governor; but when
the organisation was revealed, he was profoundly disgusted. The
management was assigned to a Board of eight members, consisting
of the president and four censors of the College of Physicians,
and the master and two governors of the College of Surgeons,
with salaries of £100 a-year apiece. From this Board, as stated,
Jenner was deliberately excluded, “so as to ensure impartial
investigation.” It was at first proposed to hold Jenner subordinate
to the Board, giving him the title of Director, with Moore as his
working deputy; for it was clearly recognised by those who had
had experience of him during his London career, that for regular
duty he was good for nothing; and that with his sickly family
resident in Gloucestershire, he was never to be reckoned upon
for a day. When, however, the Board disregarded his nominations,
especially that of his bully, John Ring, as “Principal Vaccinator
and Inspector of Stations,” he at once severed his connection with
the Establishment; “since,” in his own words, “he found that he was
to have nothing to do, and that his office was only a name.” “My
not being a member of the British Vaccine Establishment will,” he
wrote, “astonish the world; and no one in it can be more astonished
than myself”; but so far as can be discerned, the astonishment
was chiefly limited to himself. Evanescent and futile is the
astonishment of the world under most circumstances, and had the
public opinion of the time been consulted, there is little doubt
that it would have gone with the Board against Jenner.
Moore was, therefore, promoted to Jenner’s place as Director of the
National Vaccine Establishment, in subordination to the Board of
Physicians and Surgeons. Seven stations, with seven superintendent
surgeons, were opened in London for vaccinating all who should
apply, and for collecting and distributing virus.
At first [writes Moore] the applicants for Vaccination at the
various stations were not numerous, not amounting to 3,000
a year; but, by continued exertions, and the declension of
prejudice, the numbers regularly increased, and 7,771 persons
were vaccinated in London in the year 1816.[275]
These numbers are significant, as indicating the extent of the
collapse of vaccination, and how little the continuous decline of
smallpox in London was due to its extension.
Moore was a shrewd tactician. He had the sense to recognise that
if there was anything in vaccination, it was folly to stand at
variance with Jenner; and by persuading him that he exaggerated
the offence implied in the policy of the Board, he gradually
soothed his feelings and led him into a long and confidential
correspondence. Jenner, on his side, finding that nothing resulted
from his sulks, relaxed, and from time to time favoured the Board
with the light of his countenance and counsels.
The national endowment of vaccination affected prejudicially all
other enterprises in the same line. What remained of the Royal
Jennerian Society withered up, and the conductors of the London
Vaccine Institution found the collection of subscriptions almost
impossible. It was naturally objected by those solicited, “Why
should we be asked to subscribe for what Government has already
provided?” But with Dr. John Walker, the director of the London
Institution, vaccination was a fanaticism, and he was ready to
live on bread and water rather than withdraw from the promotion
of what he was persuaded was a work of salvation. He therefore
struggled on, in spite of discouragement and petty means, and as
the inability of the Government Establishment to meet demands
became manifest, whether from excess of dignity or apathy, the
Quaker Institution, as it was called, began to thrive, to acquire
the confidence alike of the medical profession and the public, and
to rival in business the Establishment itself.
As for the investigation promised in the House of Commons, it was
never even attempted. Jenner’s anxiety was superfluous. When a case
of smallpox, or injury, or death after vaccination was reported,
it was the recognised formula to assert either some defect in
the operation, or the virus, or some cause, or any cause _ab
extra_ rather than allow the Jennerian principle to suffer. As an
illustration of the procedure of the Board in this respect, we have
the instance of Mr. Thomas Brown, surgeon, Musselburgh, as served
up in Moore’s insolence--
The Vaccine was in two years spread over Scotland. After a time,
however, one croaking voice was raised to disturb the general
concord. Mr. Brown, who was fretting in obscurity at Musselburgh,
published a book in 1809 to maintain that the Vaccine only
possessed the property of preventing Smallpox temporarily; that
in three years its influence declined; and in five or six, hardly
any security against Smallpox remained.
Brown submitted his cases to the Board, but they met with no
attention.
In this extremity [continues Moore] he wrote a scurrilous
accusation of the National Vaccine Establishment to the Secretary
of State, which was referred to the Board. When they met, the
Registrar read it, and then tied it up with red tape among that
mass of papers which are consigned to rest.[276]
Could more be expressed in less? Thus was Brown, the representative
of true science and enlightened and honest inquiry, set at naught
and traduced by a Board endowed for investigation! Nor, in saying
so, do I speak simply as an antagonist of vaccination. Brown was no
anti-vaccinist. What he contended for is now everywhere admitted by
vaccinists. They allow that the protection afforded by vaccination
is temporary, and that it is necessary to renew its prophylaxy
from time to time. The practice of revaccination is based on the
verity of Brown’s contention, and yet, according to Moore, he was a
vain-glorious and scurrilous fellow, and by Jenner was pronounced
“an object of commiseration rather than resentment.”
As purveyors of virus, too, the Establishment fell behind Walker’s
Institution, and the Quakers’ pox had the preference among
connoisseurs in the article. Jenner wrote to Moore, 5th March,
1816--
The Matter sent out by the National Vaccine Establishment is much
complained of. I was applied to a few weeks since by the surgeons
of the hospital at Gloucester for some Vaccine Matter, and their
request was accompanied by the observation, “That after using
thirty points sent from town, not a single pustule was produced.”
To account for such failures, it began to be reported that the
virus was gradually losing its virtue in transit through many arms;
but, continued Jenner--
Medical men are more expert than others in discovering causes
without the fatigue of much thinking, and in the present
instance they have all hit upon the wrong one--no great wonder.
They attribute the lessened activity of the Matter, and its
disposition to produce imperfect vesicles, to the great length
of time which has elapsed since it was taken from the cow, and
to the immense number of human subjects through whom it has
passed. This is a conjecture, and I can destroy it by facts. The
Matter may undergo a change that may render it unfit for further
use by passing even from one individual to another; and this
was as likely to happen in the first year of Vaccination as the
twentieth. There are medical men who will take anything they can
catch under the mere name of Vaccine Matter, or from pustules
incorrect in character. It is from the spread of such Matter that
the dissatisfaction of which I speak has arisen.[277]
When we refer to the record of the National Vaccine Establishment,
there is little reason for surprise over its inefficiency. The
House of Commons, having voted the endowment of £3,000 a-year, the
Government committed the organisation of the Establishment and the
administration of its funds to the heads of the Royal College of
Physicians. How the £3,000 a-year was disposed of, came to light in
1822, when the accounts were published. The statement stood thus
for 1821, representing what had gone on during the past twelve
years--
£ £
PHYSICIANS.--Sir Henry Halford, Bart. 100
Dr. Frampton 100
Dr. Thomas Hume 100
Dr. Charles Badham 100
Dr. R. Lloyd 100
---- 500
SURGEONS.--Sir Everard Home 100
Sir W. Blizard 100
Henry Cline 100
---- 300
REGISTRAR.--James Hervey, M.D. 300
DIRECTOR.-- James Moore 200
SECRETARY.--C. Murray 50
---- 550
VACCINATORS.--One at £150 150
Five ” 100 500
One ” 75 75
Six ” 50 300
---- 1,025
HOUSEKEEPER 40
MESSENGER 52
Rent of furnished House, 18 Percy Street 260
---- 352
Printing, stationery, coal, candle, &c. 183
------
Total £2,910
------
The accounts, though they revealed what was suspected, were widely
denounced as scandalous. Parliament voted £3,000 a-year to extend
vaccination among the poor, and here were a set of physicians
and surgeons pocketing £800 of it, and muddling away the greater
part of the remainder. They affected to regard vaccination as
the deliverance of mankind from the scourge of smallpox, and yet
they had not hesitated to appropriate the means provided for its
diffusion! There was scarcely the pretence of work for wages.
The Board met once a week, but the attendance was irregular, and
at each member’s discretion. The eight hundred-a-yearers dropped
in when convenient for gossip, and to ask what was doing. When
set upon their defence, the argument was that the public were
distrustful of vaccination, and that to inspire confidence it was
necessary that the Establishment should have the benefit of the
ostensible support of the College of Physicians and the College
of Surgeons, for which the honorarium of £100 annually to each of
their representatives was by no means excessive. In reply, it was
pointed out that Dr. Walker, supported by voluntary contributions,
collected with difficulty, and with less than the pay of many an
artizan, had done more for vaccination in London and the country,
and was more respected and trusted, than the Establishment with all
the prestige of corporate authority.
As the result of many protests, the waste of public money was
brought before the House of Commons by Joseph Hume. It was Mr.
Hume’s distinction that, with strong good sense and invincible
patience, he upheld the standard of honesty in public finance,
holding that it was as wrong to defraud the nation as to defraud
an individual; and that it was as foolish (not to say more wicked)
to pay away the people’s money for nothing, as to throw away
one’s own. The principle, so obviously indisputable, and yet
so shamelessly violated in every department of the State, was
enforced in detail by Mr. Hume with a persistency and success
that has never been surpassed, and, I fear, never appreciated as
deserved. He showed that patriotism is a practical virtue, instead
of a sentimental pretext for public plunder, and taught honour to
placemen to whom honour was unknown. Appropriately, therefore, Mr.
Hume led the charge against the National Vaccine Establishment, and
in 1827 the annual vote was reduced from £3,000 to £2,500, £300
of the £500 being saved by knocking off two useless physicians
and one useless surgeon. Even then the extravagance that remained
continued to excite indignation, the consequences of which are
recorded in a “Report from the Select Committee on the Vaccine
Board, with the Minutes of Evidence, ordered by the House of
Commons to be printed, 28th August, 1833.” If space allowed, it
would be easy to linger over the disclosures of this Committee.
Suffice it to say, that Dr. George Gregory, of the Smallpox
Hospital, held that the whole work of the Board might be done
handsomely on £1,200 a-year. The Committee, however, shrank from
such a severe exercise of economy, and recommended the provision of
the following staff and expenses--
Vaccinators at Stations in London (a sum which will
probably admit of reduction) £900
Inspector } { 200
Registrar } Qualified on occasion to exchange duties { 200
Messenger 55
Offices, rent of 100
Incidental expenses 150
------
Total £1,605
The Committee observed that the Board might consist of two
physicians and one surgeon, whose duties, not being onerous,
might be discharged gratuitously. As the Committee was more
loose-handed than Dr. Gregory, so the Commons were laxer than the
Committee. The President and a Censor of the College of Physicians,
and the President of the College of Surgeons, were suffered to
continue their £100 a-year each, and the annual subsidy for the
Establishment stood fixed at £2,200, until vaccination, under the
disguise of sanitation, developed into the monstrous proportions
with which we are at this day afflicted.
There is much talk prevalent in favour of “the endowment of
research;” but what may come of such endowment, when not sharply
looked after, is manifest in the example of the National Vaccine
Establishment. The investigation, assumed to start with, was never
pursued; and the guardianship of the public interest undertaken
by the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons was never anything but
make-believe. Annual Reports were presented to Parliament, signed
by the heads of the Establishment, but of research they bore no
trace, and many of them might have been dashed off by the Registrar
in the course of an hour. Destitute of any scientific merit, these
reports yet afford some curious glimpses of what was going on from
year to year, with indications of the chief points of resistance
encountered by the practice of vaccination; and, in turning over
the series from 1810 to 1840, I have made the following notes,
which may be read, perhaps, with interest.
VARIOLATION.
The chief resistance proceeded from the inoculators with smallpox;
indeed, with the exception of apathy, there might be said to be no
other resistance. Hence we read under the several dates--
1810.--During 1809, the surgeons vaccinated 1,493 persons. We
are sorry to have to relate a decline of Vaccination in the
Metropolis, and an apparent indisposition to the practice of it;
and to express regret that there should be evil-disposed persons,
who are endeavouring to frustrate His Majesty’s intentions by
alarming the misinformed with stories which they know to be false.
1812.--We have reason to ascribe the increase of Smallpox in
London during last year to the rash and inconsiderate manner
in which great numbers are still inoculated for the Smallpox,
and afterwards required to attend two or three times a week at
the place of inoculation in every stage of their illness. The
practice of Inoculation is the great means whereby Smallpox is
kept in existence, and its infection propagated to persons and
places where it would not otherwise be seen.
1814.--The Board has with great regret to observe that, although
the punishment of three months’ imprisonment was awarded against
Sophia Vantandillo, for carrying her child, whilst under the
influence of Smallpox, through the streets, (which infected many
others, eight of whom died) the unwary are still enticed by the
hand-bills of shameless empirics to submit their children to
Variolous Inoculation. It is, however, to be hoped that the above
sentence passed by the Court of King’s Bench, which the Board
has taken every method of promulgating, may produce considerable
benefit. The Board selected Sophia Vantandillo as a proper
example on account of the extent of the mischief occasioned by
her misconduct; and that this prosecution, followed by a lenient
punishment, may prevent any further wilful exposure of inoculated
persons, is its fervent wish. The Board at the same time
prosecuted Mr. Burnet, who inoculated the child, and who has long
circulated most mischievous and offensive hand-bills, offering
to inoculate persons with Smallpox gratis, and stigmatising
Vaccination as productive of the most loathsome disease. This
practitioner having suffered judgment to go by default, has
been sentenced by the Court of King’s Bench to six months’
imprisonment.
The whole of the expenses incident to this Establishment for
1814 have been defrayed by the vote of last year, but the Board
regrets that in consequence of the recent prosecutions and
convictions, and the measures adopted for the more effectual
extension of the practice of vaccination throughout the Empire,
an addition of £500 to the annual grant will be necessary.
1815.--In Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Norwich, Inoculation is
disused, and, in consequence, the Smallpox is scarcely known. In
the country about Aberystwith in Wales, and Bawtry in Yorkshire,
it has entirely disappeared. The reverse is, unhappily, the case
in Portsmouth, Bristol, and London. In the Metropolis alone the
mortality may be estimated at 1,000 annually; perhaps throughout
the United Kingdom it is not less than ten times that number. It
appears to us that this waste of human life can be prevented only
by such legislative enactments as will entirely put a stop to
Inoculation with Smallpox.
That smallpox was increased by variolation we have no reason to
doubt, notwithstanding the fact that toward the close of the last
century, when variolation was most practised, smallpox was steadily
falling-off; but to ascribe the existence and persistence of
smallpox to variolation was absurd. Smallpox was a widely-diffused
disease before variolation was introduced to anticipate and
minimise it.
1817.--The pernicious practice of Smallpox Inoculation, now
very generally relinquished by the medical profession, is only
persisted in by a very few of the least creditable class of
practitioners, and is usually carried on clandestinely; yet the
Board are concerned to state that this destructive operation
is now performed for gain by itinerant Empirics, Farriers,
Publicans, Nurses, low, cunning people of both sexes, and of
various descriptions. And such is the infatuation of the poor
and ignorant, that many of them carry their infants to be
inoculated by those who only know how to inflict, but not how
to assuage, the violence of Smallpox. The consequence has been
that many have perished under their management; and the disease
in particular districts has been widely disseminated. As this
iniquitous conduct has prevailed much in London, an epidemic of
Smallpox was last year excited among those who were not secured
by Vaccination, and 1,051 persons died of the disease.
1836.--Only 300 died of Smallpox in London in the course of
last year; and it is probable that this mortality, however
comparatively small, is owing to the continued partial practice
of Inoculation, which is liable to disseminate far and wide its
contagious influence, to the imminent danger of all who have not
been protected by previous Vaccination, or by having had Smallpox
already.
Variolation was made a penal offence in 1840, and became less
available as an excuse for the persistence of smallpox in defiance
of vaccination.
FAILURE OF VACCINATION.
Accepting Jenner’s revelation, the heads of the medical profession
in London assured the public, in a manifesto in 1800, that “those
persons who have had Cowpox are perfectly secure from the future
infection of Smallpox.” It was a rash assertion. Proofs of its
untruth were not slow to appear. At first they were denied, then
explained away, and then admitted under qualifications more or
less adroit. When, in 1808, the National Vaccine Establishment was
constituted, the fact of the failure of Vaccination to answer to
its original promise was generally recognised. Nevertheless, the
reports of the Establishment exhibit much ingenious wriggling and
attempts to out-lie Nature. For example--
1811.--That in some instances Smallpox has affected persons who
have been most carefully vaccinated, is sufficiently established;
nor ought we to be surprised at this, when we consider that
Inoculation for Smallpox sometimes fails, and that several
cases may be produced in which persons have been affected with
the natural disease more than once in the course of life. The
Board have infinite satisfaction in stating the two following
important and decisive facts in proof of the efficacy and safety
of Vaccination, namely, that in the cases which have come to
their knowledge, Smallpox after Vaccination, with a very few
exceptions, has been a mild disease, and that out of the many
hundred thousand persons Vaccinated, not a single authenticated
instance has been communicated to them of the occurrence of fatal
Smallpox after Vaccination.
The Board have great pleasure in stating that the money granted
by Parliament during the last session has been sufficient to
defray the expenses of the year 1811, and they are of opinion
that the same sum will be adequate to the expenditure of the
current year.
There were 3,148 vaccinations effected under the Board in 1811,
which was at the rate of about £1 a-head.
Moore, after reporting some cases of smallpox after vaccination, at
St. Osyth, in Essex, went on to say--
1816.--Some very rare instances of failures in Vaccination, as
exceptions to a general law, may be expected as long as Smallpox
is prevalent; since it has been fully ascertained that when
the air is strongly impregnated with the infectious vapour of
Smallpox, some of those who have had the disease are attacked a
second time.
1818.--From the foundation of this Establishment in 1808 to the
present year there have been vaccinated 52,253 persons at the
stations in London. Only four of these are yet known to have had
Smallpox afterwards, and these were never very seriously ill.
1819.--The testimonies of some of our correspondents concur in
showing that great numbers of persons who had been vaccinated
have been subsequently seized with a disease presenting all the
essential characters of Smallpox; but that in the great majority
of such cases, the disease has been of comparatively short
duration, unattended by symptoms of danger. In several of these
cases, however, the malady has been prolonged to its ordinary
period, and in eight reported cases it has proved fatal. It
appears to us to be fairly established that the disposition in
the vaccinated to be thus affected by the contagion of Smallpox
does not depend upon the time that has elapsed after Vaccination,
since some persons have been so affected who had recently been
vaccinated, whilst others who had been vaccinated eighteen and
twenty years have been variolated, and exposed to contagion with
impunity.
1820.--It is true that we have received accounts from different
parts of the country of numerous cases of Smallpox having
occurred after Vaccination, and we cannot doubt that the
prejudices of the people against this preventive are assignable
(and not altogether unreasonably, perhaps) to this cause. These
cases the Board have industriously investigated, and though it
appears that many of them rest only on hearsay evidence, and that
others seem to have undergone the Vaccine Process imperfectly,
yet after every reasonable deduction, we are compelled to allow
that too many still remain on undeniable proof to leave any doubt
that the pretensions of Vaccination, to the merit of a perfect
and exclusive security in all cases against Smallpox, were at
first admitted too unreservedly.
1825.--That a considerable number of persons have had Smallpox
after having been vaccinated, we are ready to admit; although of
cases of this kind, a large majority are found on examination
to be without that test of the operation being performed
successfully and effectually, which all agree to be necessary to
perfect security. Vaccination, therefore, it will be said, does
not afford an absolute and perfect security. We do not present it
to the world with that pretension, but we declare it to be the
least imperfect of the resources we possess for encountering the
disease.
1827.--It is true, cases are reported to us very often of the
occurrence of Smallpox after Vaccination; but we have reason to
believe that the number of those who fall into this safe, though
sometimes severe disease, after Vaccination, is not greater than
that of those who formerly _died_ by Inoculation whilst that
practice prevailed.
1833.--Of an equal number of persons vaccinated and variolated,
only so many of the former will be capable of taking the Smallpox
afterwards, and that in a safe degree of the disease, as are
found to die by the latter.
1836.--If 300 children be vaccinated, one will be susceptible of
Smallpox afterwards, but only in a mild and perfectly safe form,
whereas if 300 be variolated, one will surely die.
As evolutions from inner consciousness, the statistics of
Variolation and Vaccination under 1827, 1833, and 1836 are
noteworthy. They illustrate the facility of the Board at the
discovery of what was thought _ought to be true_.
DEVELOPMENT OF A FABULOUS SALVATION.
1811.--Previous to the discovery of Vaccination, the average
number of deaths by Smallpox within the London bills of mortality
was 2,000 annually; whereas during 1811, only 751 died of the
disease, notwithstanding the increase of population.
1818.--During the year, 6,289 have been vaccinated in London
and the vicinity; and the Board have much satisfaction in
adducing unequivocal evidence of the increasing advantages of the
Jennerian discovery; for it appears from the bills of mortality
of London that, instead of 2,000 deaths by Smallpox, which was
the annual average previous to the practice of Vaccination, there
died in 1818 only 421.
That, previous to the introduction of vaccination, 2,000 was the
average annual death-rate from smallpox in London is a statement
that requires definition. At an early date the number is under the
mark, and at a later it is over the mark. Dr. Farr delivers the
truth in these words--
Smallpox attained its maximum mortality after Inoculation was
introduced. The annual deaths from Smallpox in London, from 1760
to 1779, were on an average 2,323. In the next twenty years, 1780
to 1799, they declined to 1,740. The disease, therefore, began to
grow less fatal before Vaccination was discovered, indicating,
together with the diminution of fevers, the general improvement
of health then taking place.
Bearing Dr. Farr’s figures in mind (and not forgetting the 2,000
adduced by the Board in the reports for 1811 and 1818), what does
the reader think of the following audacious attempts on public
credulity?--
1826.--From the quantity of vaccine lymph distributed, we are led
to presume the practice of Vaccination is becoming daily more
general; and the inference is still further confirmed by the fact
that in 1826, only 503 deaths have occurred from Smallpox within
the bills of mortality; whereas in the preceding year, 1,299
persons are recorded as having fallen victims to the loathsome
disease. The whole of this difference ought not, perhaps, in
candour to be attributed to the influence of Vaccination; for
Smallpox during 1825 assumed a peculiarly malignant character;
and there were more instances of the distemper occurring twice
in the same individual than had ever been reported to us before.
But when we reflect that before the introduction of Vaccination
the average number of deaths from Smallpox in London was annually
about 4,000, no stronger argument can reasonably be demanded in
favour of the value of this important discovery. Nor can any more
striking proof be given of the paternal care of the Government
to protect the people at home and abroad from this destructive
disease than the establishment and maintenance of this Board.
The bouncing falsehood, having passed muster, was repeated with
enlargement at a suitable interval--
1834.--Only 334 deaths by Smallpox have been reported, a
number considerably less than have died in any year since the
introduction of Vaccination, and falling short by at least 4,000
of the average of deaths annually by Smallpox in London before
the protecting influence of Cowpox was discovered and promulgated.
And again it appeared with a fresh touch of exaggeration--
1836.--The annual loss of life by Smallpox in the Metropolis
before Vaccination was established exceeded 5,000, whereas, in
the course of last year, only 300 died of the distemper.
Impunity being apparently assured, the fable came to be delivered
as matter-of-course, thus--
1839.--Formerly 5,000 died annually of Smallpox within the
London bills of mortality; but since Vaccination superseded
Variolation, the number has gradually decreased, until it
amounted to only 200 in the year 1837. In the course of the
year that has terminated (during which Smallpox prevailed
epidemically), there died 800; not one more, after all, than
one-sixth of the number who died annually [that is to say,
4,800] during the prevalence of Variolation, notwithstanding the
increased population of London and its environs. By a careful
retrospect, we are, therefore, justified in stating that 4,000
lives are saved every year in London, since Vaccination so
largely superseded Variolation.
The fall in smallpox that set in toward the close of last century
was not confined to London, but extended to many European
populations. It began before vaccination was heard of, and
continued independently of it, though the vaccinators eagerly
claimed the phenomenon as the result of their superfluous efforts.
The claim was absurd as concerned London, for it plainly appears
that vaccination during the years in question never overtook, or
even approached, the metropolitan birth-rate. Here is the record of
the vaccinations effected by the Establishment in five years--
1818 1819 1820 1821 1822 Total.
----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ------
5,490 7,874 6,054 6,627 8,230 = 34,275
The entire vaccinations in five years not equalling the London
births in any one year! There were, we dare say, as many more
vaccinated by voluntary effort; but the figures, however extended,
cannot be got to cover the immense mass of lower-class Londoners,
who then, as now, were the chief factors of smallpox. What I say
emphatically is, the National Vaccine Establishment had as much
influence on London smallpox as the Holy Alliance.
POCK-MARKED FACES.
One of the arguments for vaccination at this day runs thus--“How do
you account for the absence of pock-marked faces? When I was young,
forty years ago, nothing was commoner than countenances disfigured
by smallpox.” Occasionally the reminiscence is transferred to a
mother or grandmother, who is reported to have said that she
remembered when every third or fourth person was pitted.
We need not take seriously the motherly or grand-motherly
reminiscences, so apt to be touched with the glamour of years.
Confining ourselves to living memories, the owners thereof may,
perhaps, be surprised to learn that the transformation for which
they personally avouch was effected before they were born, or
were qualified observers; and before vaccination was sufficiently
practised to have wrought the change; and here is the evidence, as
set forth in the reports of the National Vaccine Establishment, and
printed by order of the House of Commons. Under the following dates
we read--
1822.--As a proof of the protecting influence of Vaccination,
we appeal confidently to all who frequent theatres and crowded
assemblies to admit that they do not discover in the rising
generation any longer that disfigurement of the human face which
was obvious everywhere some years since.
1825.--The deaths by Smallpox amounted to 1,299 in 1825, a much
greater number than has been reported for some years past.
From this melancholy statement it is impossible to avoid the
conclusion that the lower orders of society continue to be
prejudiced against Vaccination, and allow Smallpox to take its
course.
And yet what argument more powerful can be urged in favour of
Vaccination than the daily remark which the least observant must
make, that in our churches, our theatres, and in every large
assemblage of the people, to see a young person bearing the marks
of Smallpox is now of extremely rare occurrence.
To what can the freedom from the vestiges of so loathsome a
disease be attributed, but to the protecting influence of
Vaccination? for Variolation has now been disused by all
respectable practitioners for some time past.
1837.--The rarity of an example of disfigurement by Smallpox
now to be found in the theatres, in churches, or in any large
assemblage of the people, affords proof that Vaccination has lost
none of its efficacy.
Pock-marked faces are by no means uncommon at this day in London,
though their number has diminished through more careful nursing
and the use of well-known means for preventing disfigurement; and
whoever cares to pursue the inquiry will discover that the majority
of the marked have been vaccinated and many re-vaccinated--a proof
that it is not the rite which prevents the scars.
The general impression we derive from the reports of the
Establishment, 1808-40, is that they proceeded from men who
were committed to vaccination, but had no profound faith in its
efficacy; who were averse from the admission of its impotence,
and ultimately held by it as possibly the best available defence
against smallpox. With ample means and opportunities for
investigation, they made no discovery, nor achieved any advance in
practice, nor apparently conceived that there was either discovery
or advance to be made. They accepted smallpox as a mysterious
ordinance of Nature, with cowpox for a probable antidote, and there
stuck fast, thoughtless and helpless. They did not even observe
that smallpox was specially a disease of the young and the poor,
nor deduce conclusions therefrom. They had their money, and went
through an appropriate routine, and there their action ended.
FOOTNOTES:
[275] _History and Practice of Vaccination_, p. 223.
[276] _History and Practice of Vaccination_, p. 226.
[277] Baron’s _Life of Jenner_, vol. ii., p. 398.