JOHN GIBBS’S LETTER--1855.
As we have said, there was little living confidence in vaccination.
Jenner’s undertaking, “that the person inoculated with cowpox is
rendered perfectly secure from the infection of smallpox,” had
been everywhere conspicuously belied. But latterly a new faith
had come into existence as to the preventibility of disease and
the possibility of its suppression; and, thus persuaded, the
public were less disposed to be sceptical toward new or revived
prophylactic impostures. Favoured by this disposition of the
public mind, a clique of vaccinators, operating under cover of the
Epidemiological Society, were able to obtain concessions from
Parliament which, prior to the sanitary evangel, were unattainable.
It was only when too audacious, they proposed to set up a
Vaccination Office, endowed from the Exchequer, with inquisitorial
and punitive functions, that they suffered check.
To resist doctrine it is necessary to possess doctrine. People
might distrust or dislike vaccination, but they were at a great
disadvantage against aggressors until prepared to justify their
distrust and dislike in definite and scientific form, setting
evidence against assertion, and veracious against factitious
statistics. Unfortunately the mischief of coercive legislation
was consummated ere opposition was organised. The first to frame
a comprehensive indictment against vaccination was John Gibbs, an
Irish gentleman. It took the form of a letter addressed to Sir
Benjamin Hall, dated from Maze Hill Cottage, St. Leonards-on-Sea,
30th June, 1855. On the motion of Joseph Brotherton, M.P. for
Salford, the letter was ordered to be printed by the House of
Commons, 31st March, 1856.[286]
Mr. Gibbs opened his letter with drawing attention to the fact
that whilst the Compulsory Act of 1853 was the first direct attack
upon personal liberty in medical matters, there was “no subject
upon which so many otherwise well-informed persons betrayed such
ignorance and credulity as upon vaccination.” Indeed, upon nothing
were the legislators who enacted compulsion so frank as in their
confession of ignorance and submission to medical instruction. What
was there to justify legislation on terms thus abject against their
fellow-countrymen?--
Why is Vaccination held in abhorrence by so many? Have those who
reject it no weighty reasons to justify their rejection? They do
not believe that it affords an efficient and assured protection
against the invasion of Smallpox; they have a natural disgust
to the transfer of a loathsome virus from a diseased brute,
through they know not how many unhealthy human mediums, to the
veins of their children; they have a dread, a conviction, that
other filthy diseases, tending to embitter and shorten life, are
frequently transmitted through the vaccine virus; they cannot
bring themselves to believe that the true way to health can be to
corrupt the blood and lower the vital energies by the infusion
of a poison and its consequent train of morbid influences; and
further, they have a conscientious conviction that voluntarily to
propagate disease is to set at naught the Divine Providence and
violate the Divine Will.
Are such scruples and objections entitled to no respect? Should
they be permitted to have no force? Are they capable of no
justification? Should the sole answer to them be a Coercion
Act? Such is not the best way to disarm hostility, and to
ensure conviction. Who would put faith in the professions of a
philanthropist who should threaten the objects of his beneficence
with fine or imprisonment if they did not accept his proffered
boon? Or who could receive with cordiality and respect the doctor
of physic who should thunder at the door, armed with scab and
lancet, threatening to assault the inmates if they did not accept
his services? If Vaccination be indeed a blessing which must
needs be showered upon the land, would it not be more becoming in
a wise Government and a free people to trust to the dissemination
of information rather than attempt to make unconverted converts
by force?
Had smallpox been preventible by vaccination, such contention
would have been useless. The virtue of the rite, manifest in
its efficacy, would have secured its observance. The bitterness
of compulsion lay in the attempt to enforce imposture, and to
suppress the convictions of those whose perceptions were sharper,
and whose loyalty to right was more determined than in the mass of
the nation. Mr. Gibbs had no difficulty in adducing evidence in
proof that vaccination did not prevent smallpox. The reports of the
Registrar-General and the hospitals furnished testimony in such
profusion, that his difficulty lay in the selection of examples
likely to be most convincing. From the _Lancet_, of 21st May, 1853,
he took the following confession--
In the public mind extensively, and to a more limited extent in
the medical profession itself, doubts are known to exist as to
the efficacy and eligibility of Vaccination. The failures of the
operation have been numerous and discouraging.
Nor did the failure to prevent smallpox exhaust the condemnation
of vaccination. Ineffective, it was far from harmless. Itself a
disease, it was a conductor and excitant of other diseases, and,
inoculated, occasionally bore with it other company. Erysipelas,
as Jenner taught, was the note of successful vaccination; but
erysipelas, not being a limitable affection, was frequently a
mortal one; and deaths from erysipelas as a sequence of vaccination
were of constant occurrence. Then there were skin eruptions,
carbuncular and glandular swellings, tuberculosis, scrofula,
syphilis, etc., either provoked or inseminated with the vaccine
disease. Such results were so distinctly recognised that, in the
_Lancet_, of the 11th November, 1854, it was stated--
So widely extended is the dread that along with the prophylaxy
something else may be inoculated, that few medical practitioners
would care to vaccinate their own children from a source of the
purity of which they are not well assured.
But the care vaccinators exercised over their own offspring was
impracticable for the multitude. Again, citing the _Lancet_, 23rd
October, 1854, it was said--
The poor are told that they must carry their children to be
vaccinated by medical men who may be strangers to them. They
apprehend--and the apprehension is not altogether unfounded,
or unshared by the educated classes, that the vaccine matter
employed may carry with it the seeds of other diseases not less
loathsome than the one it is intended to prevent.
Useless against smallpox, and injurious in itself, it remained to
test the influence of vaccination on the health of the community--
What is the per centage of deaths from all epidemics among the
Vaccinated as compared with the Unvaccinated? What is the per
centage respectively of cases of disease of the respiratory
organs, of skin diseases, of scrofula, and of convulsions? What
is the average duration of life among the Vaccinated and among
the Unvaccinated? Of a thousand children vaccinated within a
given time after birth, and of a thousand unvaccinated, the
whole two thousand being placed as nearly as possible in like
circumstances, what per centage in each thousand attain the age
of puberty?
These are statistics with which the advocates of Vaccination have
never grappled. Is it not, then, rather premature to decide that
Vaccination is an unmixed good, a boon which we ought not only
gratefully to accept, but which we should even combine to force
upon the acceptance of others?
If it should appear that before a given age the rate of mortality
from all causes be the same among a thousand vaccinated and a
thousand unvaccinated children, of what avail is Vaccination?
Of what import is it, as a public question, in what shape death
claims his allotted number of victims, whether by Smallpox,
Scarlet Fever, or Hooping Cough? If, however, the rate of
mortality should prove to be greater among the Vaccinated than
among the Unvaccinated, how shall we avoid the conclusion that
Vaccination is a curse and not a blessing?
The interdependence of the forms of zymotic disease, so luminously
displayed by Dr. Watt in the statistics of Glasgow, was apparently
a conception in excess of the capacity of the average medical mind.
It was the custom of vaccinators to treat smallpox as a solitary
existence, any diminution of which was ascribed to the observance
of their rite, and any increase to its neglect, although the
observance of the rite was neither less in the waxing, nor more in
the waning of the disease. With many illustrations from medical
literature, Mr. Gibbs enforced the lesson that diseases were
not irregular and detached disasters, but varied manifestations
of a common disorder: that when one form prevailed, other forms
abated or disappeared; that health, and the defect of health, were
referable to habits and conditions of life; and that the consequent
rate of mortality was unaffected whether smallpox happened to be
one of its factors--indeed, in numerous instances, a reduced rate
of mortality signalised the prevalence of smallpox. In short,
to suppose that the creation and culture of an ailment like
vaccination could by any means tend to the invigoration of life was
to reverse the canon--that health always and everywhere was the
best defence of health.
Among the supporters of his thesis, none had greater weight than
Dr. George Gregory. Adducing “the experience which twenty years of
official connection with the Smallpox and Vaccination Hospital had
given him,” he asserted--
The great principle that there are no diseases strictly isolated
from others. They are links in a chain--
“All are but parts of one stupendous whole.”
They must be viewed in conjunction, if we would hope to form
just, enlarged, and legitimate views of the character and
pathological affinities of each.
Long surmised, but never proved, until the statistical inquiries of
recent times showed its correctness, Dr. Gregory continues--
We may, for want of a better name, call this curious doctrine the
Law of Vicarious Mortality; by which is understood that whenever
one epidemic diminishes, another increases, so that the sum total
of epidemic mortality remains, on an average of years, nearly the
same.
EPIDEMIC MORTALITY IN ENGLAND AND WALES DURING 1838, 1839, AND
1840.
+------------------------------+----------+----------+----------+
| |Year 1838.|Year 1839.|Year 1840.|
+------------------------------+----------+----------+----------+
|Smallpox | 16,268 | 9,131 | 10,434 |
|Measles | 6,514 | 10,937 | 9,326 |
|Scarlet Fever | 5,802 | 10,325 | 19,816 |
| +----------+----------+----------|
| Total Mortality by the | 28,584 | 30,393 | 39,576 |
| Exanthemata, | | | |
|Hooping Cough | 9,107 | 8,165 | 6,132 |
| +----------+----------+----------+
| Total Epidemic Mortality | 37,691 | 38,558 | 45,708 |
| +----------+----------+----------+
| Total Mortality throughout | | | |
| Englandand Wales | 342,529 | 338,979 | 359,561 |
+------------------------------+----------+----------+----------+
We learn from this table, that every year is distinguished by
some master epidemic. In 1838, Smallpox was the ruling epidemic
throughout England. In 1839, Measles and Scarlet Fever struggled
for the mastery. In 1840, Scarlet Fever was so general and so
fatal, that the mortality by it exceeded by one-fifth the ravages
of Smallpox during the epidemic season of 1838, and more than
doubled the mortality by that disease in 1839....
Everything teaches us that when one avenue to death is closed
another opens--
“Noctes atque dies patet atri janua Ditis.”
Vaccination, great as its merits are [What are they?--J. G.],
and no one more fully appreciates them than I do, does not, and
cannot do, all that its too sanguine admirers promised. The
blessings of Vaccination are met and balanced by the Law of
Vicarious Mortality. How and why is this? The explanation is
easy. The weak plants of a nursery must be weeded out. If weakly
children do not fall victims to Smallpox, they live to fall into
the jaws of tyrants scarcely less inexorable. Scarlet Fever and
Measles are both advancing in respect of mortality; and the
increase of deaths by Hooping Cough since this century set in
[that is, since the introduction of Vaccination.--J. G.] is quite
extraordinary.[287]
The concession of so much was the concession of all. If smallpox
was merely displaced to be replaced, and the tale of death
maintained by cognate diseases, what was there to claim for
vaccination, even if it were allowed to have an influence adverse
to smallpox? Where were the lives saved? and where the glory of the
immortal Jenner?
The advocates of compulsory vaccination were accustomed to cite
countries like Austria, where the practice was enforced, for
English imitation. Let us then compare, said Mr. Gibbs, the
death-rate of the chief centres of English population with the
death-rate of the chief divisions of Austria, and note which had
the advantage in the years 1850-51--
Death-rate
per 1000.
England and Wales 22·0
London 23·3
Liverpool 29·0
Manchester 29·0
Birmingham 23·3
Leeds 24·6
Dublin 26·8
Cork 23·3
Lower Austria 35·7
Upper Austria 27·7
Styria 30·3
Bohemia 38·6
Moravia 30·9
Galicia 30·8
Lombardy 33·9
Venetia 33·3
These figures required no commentary. If vaccination had stopped
smallpox in Austria, it evidently had not reduced mortality even
to the level of the most insanitary English towns.
Assuming, said Mr. Gibbs, that vaccination is entitled to all the
credit claimed for it, let us endeavour to estimate the gain, if it
should be enforced. The yearly average of deaths from all causes,
in England and Wales, is 370,000, of which about 7,000 are from
smallpox--
This 7,000, then, is the limit of gain which enforced Vaccination
could confer; but from the 7,000 should be deducted about
one-third for deaths from Smallpox among the Vaccinated; and from
the remainder should be deducted an equivalent for the deaths
caused immediately and remotely by Vaccination; and another
equivalent for the deaths resulting from the Law of Vicarious
Mortality. This done, it would require no little ingenuity to
discover a balance in favour of Vaccination.
Having thus argued the matter out, was not Mr. Gibbs justified in
asking--
What would be thought of the tinker who would knock a hole in the
bottom of his saucepan lest one should be burned there in the
ordinary way?
Yet it is just what the vaccinator does; and when he finds--as he
might have foreseen, had he been governed by common sense--that
his saucepan does not wear a bit the better, but rather the
worse, he gravely endeavours to excuse the failure, by asserting
that unfortunately he made the hole too big, or too little, too
much on this side, or too much on that, or by offering some other
equally wise excuse.
Lastly, there were the political and moral considerations involved
in compulsory vaccination--the first attempt in England to confer
on a medical prescription the force of law--
Surely, a wise Government may perceive that there are greater
evils than the occasional outbreak of an epidemic. The systematic
violation of human rights and natural affections, the uprooting
from the human breast of feelings of self-reliance, a state
religion in physic, coercion which may well be regarded as odious
persecution, the belief of the poor that what they hold dearest
is sacrificed to the selfish prejudices of the rich--any one of
these is far worse than a pestilence.
Cannot they who believe in Vaccination protect themselves? Nobody
seeks to hinder them; nobody presumes to dispute their right to
adopt any medical practice, however questionable it may be.
Why cannot they act with like forbearance to others? Surely, if
freedom be more than a name, it implies the right of the freeman
to reject not only that which other men may choose to regard as
evil, but even that which they may combine to urge upon him as
good....
How absurd that an attempt should be made to visit with
punishment the want of belief in a scientific, or rather
unscientific, dogma! How absurd to pretend to the possession of a
prophylactic of such unquestionable potency that its acceptance
requires the threat of force! In their anxiety to coerce others,
compulsory vaccinators demonstrate their own defect of faith in
the prescription which they assert affords complete security from
Smallpox.
As observed, the service of Mr. Gibbs is entitled to special
commemoration, because it was the first attempt to put the
arguments against vaccination into systematic shape. He
demonstrated the quackery of the practice, and the fallacies
wherewith it was defended; and denounced the tyranny of the
legislation that would compel those who recognised the imposture to
submit to it. The service thus rendered by Mr. Gibbs constituted a
ground of vantage for further operations: those who had to contend
against the delusion had their hands strengthened, and their power
of assault magnified, by what he was favoured to accomplish.
* * * * *
JOHN GIBBS was born at Enniscorthy, County Wexford, on 25th May,
1811. Owing to the unsettled life of his father as Captain of the
Royal Cork Volunteers, his education was desultory--at various
schools, and under various masters. Sagacious, bright, earnest, and
independent, he early manifested a passion for such things as made
for human welfare, and improvement. Abstinence from alcohol, in
connection with Father Mathew’s mission, had in him an enthusiastic
advocate. A book by Captain Claridge on the water cure excited his
interest, and led to the formation of the Enniscorthy Hydropathic
Society. Anxious to master the mysteries of this new treatment of
disease, he set out for Silesia in 1843, and placed himself under
the instruction of Priessnitz, remaining with him as a chosen
disciple until 1847, when he left with a certificate of competency.
[Illustration: (John Gibbs, with his signature)]
Whilst acquiring his art with Priessnitz, he communicated his
experiences to his Enniscorthy friends, who published them in
the Wexford newspapers, a selection from which was reproduced as
_Letters from Grœfenberg_, in 1847. A passage in one of these
letters, dated 27th November, 1844, indicates the manner in which
his attention was drawn to smallpox--
Another case of Smallpox has just been treated by Priessnitz. The
patient is the daughter of a peasant in the neighbourhood, and is
about twenty years old. She was confined for eight days, and was
most profusely covered with the eruption. An Italian physician
said that he never saw the symptoms come out better. She had at
first the usual treatment--wet sheets, wet rubbings, and tepid
baths; and, after the eruption appeared, three wet sheets and
three tepid baths daily. She will not have the slightest mark.
Under the water cure Smallpox appears to be deprived of half its
terrors; as far as my observation extends, it neither robs man of
life, nor women of beauty.
On his return, he assisted Dr. Lovell in opening a hydropathic
establishment at Barking, Essex; and, in 1848, he undertook the
medical superintendence of the Grande Chartreuse in Piedmont.
There he met Miss Anna Skelton, to whom he was married, at Nice,
in 1849. Ultimately he made his home at St. Leonards, Sussex. The
passage of the Compulsory Vaccination Act, in 1853, led him to
publish a pamphlet, _Our Medical Liberties_, 1854, which excited
the attention and won the approval of many thoughtful people. At
the suggestion of Mr. Thomas Baker, he constructed a letter from
the substance of the pamphlet, and addressed it to the President
of the Board of Health, which, as we have seen, was issued as a
parliamentary paper. The more vehement controversy which sprang up
in recent years when the Vaccination Act was tightened, found Mr.
Gibbs in health too feeble for active exertion. After his wife’s
death, he retired to Jersey to be near his sister, Mrs. General
Lane, in whose house he died in the winter of 1875.
FOOTNOTES:
[286] COMPULSORY VACCINATION.--Copy of a Letter, dated 30th
June, 1855, addressed to the President of the Board of Health by
JOHN GIBBS, Esquire, entitled, _Compulsory Vaccination briefly
considered in its Scientific, Religious, and Political Aspects._
Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, 31st March,
1856.--Folio, pp. 31.
[287] _Eruptive Fevers_, pp. 5-8. London, 1843.