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Transcriber’s Note: Vaccination is not a delusion. Thanks to vaccination,
killer diseases such as small-pox, polio and tetanus have been more
or less eliminated. The supposed link between vaccination and autism
comes from one fraudulent study which actively falsified its data (BMJ
2011; 342:c7452). If you’re reading this with the aim of justifying not
vaccinating yourself or members of your family, stop right there and go
and read some modern-day science instead.
VACCINATION A DELUSION
Its Penal Enforcement a Crime:
PROVED BY THE OFFICIAL EVIDENCE IN THE REPORTS
OF THE ROYAL COMMISSION
BY
ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE
LL.D. DUBL., D.C.L. OXON., F.R.S., ETC.
[Illustration]
London
SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., LIMD.
PATERNOSTER SQUARE
1898
BUTLER & TANNER,
THE SELWOOD PRINTING WORKS,
FROME, AND LONDON.
PREFACE
This Essay has been written for the purpose of influencing Parliament,
and securing the speedy abolition of the unjust, cruel, and pernicious
Vaccination laws. For this purpose it has been necessary to speak plainly
of the ignorance and incompetence displayed by the Royal Commission,
proofs of which I give from their “Final Report” and the evidence they
have collected and printed.
I most solemnly urge upon our Legislators that this is a question not
only of the _liberties_ of Englishmen, but one affecting the _lives_ of
their children, and the _health_ of the whole community; and that they
will be individually responsible if they do not inquire into this matter
for _themselves_,—not accept the statements or opinions of others.
In order that they may do this with a minimum expenditure of time
and labour, I have put before them the _essential facts_, in almost
every case taken from the Reports of the Royal Commission or of the
Registrar-General, and with references to page, question, or paragraph,
so that they can themselves verify every statement I make. I thus
abundantly prove, first, that in all previous legislation they have been
misled by facts and figures that are untrue and by promises that have
been all unfulfilled; and that similar misstatements have characterised
the whole official advocacy of Vaccination from the time of Jenner down
to this day. I claim, therefore, that all official statements as to
Vaccination are _untrustworthy_.
I then show that _all_ the statistics of small-pox mortality, whether
of London; of England, Scotland, and Ireland; of the best vaccinated
Continental States; of unvaccinated Leicester; or of the revaccinated
Army and Navy, without any exception, prove the _absolute inutility
of Vaccination_; and I feel confident that every unprejudiced person
who will carefully read these few pages, and will verify such of my
statements as seem to them most incredible, will be _compelled_ to come
to the same conclusion.
I appeal from the medical and official apologists of Vaccination to the
intelligence and common sense of my fellow-countrymen, and I urge them
to insist upon the immediate abolition of all legislation enforcing or
supporting this useless and dangerous operation.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. VACCINATION AND SMALL-POX 5
II. MUCH OF THE EVIDENCE ADDUCED FOR VACCINATION IS WORTHLESS 23
III. THE GENERAL STATISTICS OF SMALL-POX MORTALITY IN RELATION
TO VACCINATION 31
IV. TWO GREAT EXPERIMENTS WHICH ARE CONCLUSIVE AGAINST
VACCINATION 54
V. CRITICAL REMARKS ON THE “FINAL REPORT” 70
VI. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 80
CHAPTER I
VACCINATION AND SMALL-POX
Among the greatest self-created scourges of civilized humanity are the
group of zymotic diseases, or those which arise from infection, and
are believed to be due to the agency of minute organisms which rapidly
increase in bodies offering favourable conditions, and often cause
death. Such diseases are: plague, small-pox, measles, whooping-cough,
yellow fever, typhus and enteric fevers, scarlet fever and diphtheria,
and cholera. The conditions which especially favour these diseases
are foul air and water, decaying organic matter, overcrowding, and
other unwholesome surroundings, whence they have been termed “filth
diseases.” The most terrible and fatal of these—the plague—prevails
only where people live under the very worst sanitary conditions as
regards ventilation, water supply, and general cleanliness. Till about
250 years ago it was as common in England as small-pox has been during
the present century, but a very partial and limited advance in healthy
conditions of life entirely abolished it, its place being to some extent
taken by small-pox, cholera, and fevers. The exact mode by which all
these diseases spread is not known; cholera, typhus, and enteric fever
are believed to be communicated through the dejecta from the patient
contaminating drinking water. The other diseases are spread either by
bodily contact or by transmission of germs through the air; but with all
of them there must be conditions favouring their reception and increase.
Not only are many persons apparently insusceptible through life to some
of these diseases, but all the evidence goes to show that, if the whole
population of a country lived under thoroughly healthy conditions as
regards pure air, pure water, and wholesome food, none of them could ever
obtain a footing, and they would die out as completely as the plague and
leprosy have died out, though both were once so prevalent in England.
But during the last century there was no such knowledge, and no general
belief in the efficacy of simple, healthy conditions of life as the only
effectual safeguard against these diseases. Small-pox, although then, as
now, an epidemic disease and of very varying degrees of virulence, was
much dreaded, because, owing chiefly to improper treatment, it was often
fatal, and still more often produced disfigurement or even blindness.
When, therefore, the method of inoculation was introduced from the East
in the early part of the eighteenth century, it was quickly welcomed,
because a mild form of the disease was produced which rarely caused death
or disfigurement, though it was believed to be an effectual protection
against taking the disease by ordinary infection. It was, however,
soon found that the mild small-pox usually produced by inoculation was
quite as infectious as the natural disease, and became quite as fatal
to persons who caught it. Towards the end of the last century many
medical men became so impressed with its danger that they advocated
more attention to sanitation and the isolation of patients, because
inoculation, though it may have saved individuals, really increased the
total deaths from small-pox.
Under these circumstances we can well understand the favourable reception
given to an operation which produced a slight, _non-infectious_ disease,
which yet was alleged to protect against small-pox as completely as did
the inoculated disease itself. This was Vaccination, which arose from the
belief of farmers in Gloucestershire and elsewhere that those who had
caught cow-pox from cows were free from small-pox for the rest of their
lives. Jenner, in 1798, published his _Inquiry_, giving an account of
the facts which, in his opinion, proved this to be the case. But in the
light of our present knowledge we see that they are wholly inconclusive.
Six of his patients had had cow-pox when young, and were inoculated
with small-pox in the usual way from twenty-one to fifty-three years
afterwards, and because they did not take the disease, he concluded
that the cow-pox had preserved them. But we know that a considerable
proportion of persons in middle age are insusceptible to small-pox
infection; besides which even those who most strongly uphold vaccination
now admit that its effects die out entirely in a few years—some say
four or five, some ten—so that these people who had had cow-pox so long
before were certainly _not_ protected by it from taking small-pox.
Several other patients were farriers or stable men who were infected by
horse-grease, not by cow-pox, and were also said to be insusceptible to
small-pox inoculation, though not so completely as those who had had
cow-pox. The remainder of Jenner’s cases were six children, from five to
eight years old, who were vaccinated, and then inoculated a few weeks
or months afterwards. These cases are fallacious from two causes. In
the first place, any remnant of the effects of the vaccination (which
were sometimes severe), or the existence of scurvy, then very prevalent,
or of any other skin-disease, might prevent the test-inoculation from
producing any effect.[1] The other cause of uncertainty arises from the
fact that this “variolous test” consisted in inoculating with small-pox
virus obtained from the _last_ of a series of successive patients in
whom the effect produced was a minimum, consisting of very few pustules,
sometimes only one, and a very slight amount of fever. The results of
this test, whether on a person who had had cow-pox or who had not had it,
was usually so slight that it could easily be described by a believer
in the influence of the one disease on the other as having “no effect”;
and Dr. Creighton declares, after a study of the whole literature of
the subject, that the description of the results of the test is almost
always loose and general, and that in the few cases where more detail is
given the symptoms described are almost the same in the vaccinated as in
the unvaccinated. Again, no careful tests were ever made by inoculating
at the same time, and in exactly the same way, two groups of persons
of similar age, constitution, and health, the one group having been
vaccinated the other not, and none of them having had small-pox, and
then having the resulting effects carefully described and compared by
independent experts. Such “control” experiments would now be required in
any case of such importance as this; but it was never done in the early
days of vaccination, and it appears never to have been done to this
day. The alleged “test” was, it is true, applied in a great number of
cases by the early observers, especially by Dr. Woodville, physician to
a small-pox hospital; but Dr. Creighton shows reason for believing that
the lymph he used was contaminated with small-pox, and that the supposed
vaccinations were really inoculations. This lymph was widely spread all
over the country, and was supplied to Jenner himself, and we thus have
explained the effect of the “vaccination” in preventing the subsequent
“inoculation” from producing much effect, since both were really mild
forms of small-pox inoculation. This matter is fully explained by Dr.
Creighton in his evidence before the Royal Commission, printed in the
Second Report. Professor E. M. Crookshank, who has made a special
study of cow-pox and other animal diseases and their relation to human
small-pox, gives important confirmatory evidence, to be found in the
Fourth Report.
This brief statement of the early history of vaccination has been
introduced here in order to give what seems to be a probable explanation
of the remarkable fact that a large portion of the medical profession
accepted, as proved, that vaccination protected against a subsequent
inoculation of small-pox, when in reality there was no such proof, as
the subsequent history of small-pox epidemics has shown. The medical and
other members of the Royal Commission could not realize the possibility
of such a failure to get at the truth. Again and again they asked the
witnesses above referred to to explain how it was possible that so
many educated specialists could be thus deceived. They overlooked the
fact that a century ago was, as regards the majority of the medical
profession, a pre-scientific age; and nothing proves this more clearly
than the absence of any systematic “control” experiments, and the
extreme haste with which some of the heads of the profession expressed
their belief in the lifelong protection against small-pox afforded
by vaccination, only four years after the discovery had been first
announced. This testimony caused Parliament to vote Jenner £10,000 in
1802.
Ample proof now exists of the fallacy of this belief, since vaccination
gives no protection whatever, as will be shown later on. But there was
also no lack of proof of this failure to protect in the first ten
years of the century; and had it not been for the unscientific haste
of the medical witnesses to declare that vaccination protected against
small-pox during a whole lifetime—a fact of which they had not and
could not possibly have any evidence—this proof of failure would have
convinced them and have prevented what is really one of the scandals of
the nineteenth century. These early proofs of failure will be now briefly
indicated.
Only six years after the announcement of vaccination, in 1804, Dr.
B. Moseley, Physician to Chelsea Hospital, published a small book on
the cow-pox, containing many cases of persons who had been properly
vaccinated and had afterwards had small-pox; and other cases of severe
illness, injury, and even death resulting from vaccination; and these
failures were admitted by the Royal Jennerian Society in their Report
in 1806. Dr. William Rowley, Physician to the St. Marylebone Infirmary,
in a work on _Cow-pox Inoculation_ in 1805, which reached a third
edition in 1806, gave particulars of 504 cases of small-pox and injury
after vaccination, with seventy-five deaths. He says to his brother
medical men: “Come and see. I have lately had some of the worst species
of malignant small-pox in the Marylebone Infirmary, which many of the
faculty have examined and know to have been vaccinated.” For two days he
had an exhibition in his Lecture Room of a number of children suffering
from terrible eruptions and other diseases after vaccination.
Dr. Squirrel, formerly Resident Apothecary to the Small-pox and
Inoculation Hospital, also published in 1805 numerous cases of small-pox,
injuries, and death after vaccination.
John Birch, a London surgeon, at first adopted vaccination and
corresponded with Jenner, but soon, finding that it did not protect from
small-pox and that it also produced serious and sometimes fatal diseases,
he became one of its strongest opponents, and published many letters and
pamphlets against it up to the time of his death in 1815.
Mr. William Goldson, a surgeon at Portsea, published a pamphlet in
1804, giving many cases in his own experience of small-pox following
vaccination. What made his testimony more important was that he was a
believer in vaccination, and sent accounts of some of his cases to Jenner
so early as 1802, but no notice was taken of them.[2]
Mr. Thomas Brown, a surgeon of Musselburgh, published in 1809 a volume
giving his experiences of the results of vaccination. He had at first
accepted and practised it. He also applied the “variolous test” with
apparent success, and thereafter went on vaccinating in full confidence
that it was protective against small-pox, till 1808, when, during an
epidemic, many of his patients caught the disease from two to eight
years after vaccination. He gives the details of forty-eight cases, all
within his own personal knowledge, and he says he knew of many others.
He then again tried the “variolous test,” and found twelve cases in
which it entirely failed, the result being exactly as with those who
were inoculated without previous vaccination. These cases, with extracts
from Brown’s work, were brought before the Royal Commission by Professor
Crookshank. (See 4th Report, Q. 11,852.)
Again, Mr. William Tebb brought before the Commission a paper by Dr.
Maclean, in the _Medical Observer_ of 1810, giving =535= cases of
small-pox after vaccination, of which =97= were fatal. He also gave
=150= cases of diseases from cow-pox, with the names of ten medical
men, including two Professors of Anatomy, who had suffered in their
own families from vaccination. The following striking passage is
quoted:—“_Doctrine._—Vaccination or Cow-pox inoculation is a perfect
preventive of small-pox during life. (Jenner, etc.) _Refutation._—535
cases of small-pox after cow-pox. _Doctrine._—Cow-pox renders small-pox
milder. It is never fatal. _Refutation._—97 deaths from small-pox after
cow-pox and from cow-pox diseases.”
The cases here referred to, of failure of vaccination to protect even for
a few years, are probably only a small fraction of those that occurred,
since only in exceptional cases would a doctor be able to keep his
patients in view, and only one doctor here and there would publish his
observations. The controversy was carried on with unusual virulence,
hence perhaps the reason why the public paid so little attention to
it. But unfortunately both the heads of the medical profession and the
legislature had committed themselves by recognising the full claims of
Jenner at too early a date and in a manner that admitted of no recall.
In 1802, as already stated, the House of Commons, on the Report of its
Committee, and the evidence of the leading physicians and surgeons of
London—a large number of whom declared their belief that cow-pox was a
perfect security against small-pox—voted Jenner £10,000. When therefore
the flood of evidence poured in, showing that it did _not_ protect, it
was already too late to remedy the mischief that had been done, since
the profession would not so soon acknowledge its mistake, nor would the
legislature admit having hastily voted away the public money without
adequate reason. The vaccinators went on vaccinating, the House of
Commons gave Jenner £20,000 more in 1807, endowed vaccination with £3,000
a year in 1808, and after providing for free vaccination in 1840, made
the operation compulsory in 1855, and enforced it by penalties in 1867.
VACCINATION AND THE MEDICAL PROFESSION
Before proceeding to adduce the conclusive evidence that now exists of
the failure of vaccination, a few preliminary misconceptions must be
dealt with. One of these is, that as vaccination is a surgical operation
to guard against a special disease, medical men can alone judge of its
value. But the fact is the very reverse, for several reasons. In the
first place, they are interested parties, not merely in a pecuniary
sense, but as affecting the prestige of the whole profession. In no
other case should we allow interested persons to decide an important
matter. Whether iron ships are safer than wooden ones is not decided by
ironmasters or by shipbuilders, but by the experience of sailors and by
the statistics of loss. In the administration of medicine or any other
remedy for a disease, the conditions are different. The doctor applies
the remedy and watches the result, and if he has a large practice he
thereby obtains knowledge and experience which no other persons possess.
But in the case of vaccination, and especially in the case of public
vaccinators, the doctor does not see the result except by accident.
Those who get small-pox go to the hospitals, or are treated by other
medical men, or may have left the district, and the relation between the
vaccination and the attack of small-pox can only be discovered by the
accurate registration of all the cases and deaths, with the facts as to
vaccination or revaccination. When these facts are accurately registered,
to determine what they teach is not the business of a doctor but of a
statistician, and there is much evidence to show that doctors are bad
statisticians, and have a special faculty for misstating figures. This
allegation is so grave and so fundamental to the question at issue, that
a few facts must be given in support of it.
The National Vaccine Establishment, supported by Government grants,
issued periodical Reports, which were printed by order of the House of
Commons, and in successive years we find the following statements:
In 1812, and again in 1818, it is stated that “previous to the discovery
of vaccination the average number of deaths by small-pox within the
(London) Bills of Mortality was 2,000 annually; whereas in the last year
only 751 persons have died of the disease, although the increase of
population within the last ten years has been 133,139.”
The number 2,000 is about the average small-pox deaths of the whole
eighteenth century, but those of the last two decades before the
publication of Jenner’s _Inquiry_, were 1,751 and 1,786, showing a
decided fall. This, however, may pass. But when we come to the Report
for 1826 we find the following: “But when we reflect that before the
introduction of vaccination the average number of deaths from small-pox
within the Bills of Mortality was annually about 4,000, no stronger
argument can reasonably be demanded in favour of the value of this
important discovery.”
This monstrous figure was repeated in 1834, apparently quite forgetting
the correct figure for the whole century given in 1818, and also the
fact that the small-pox deaths recorded in the London Bills of Mortality
in any year of the century never reached 4,000. But worse is to come;
for in 1836 we have the following statement: “The annual loss of life
by small-pox in the Metropolis, and within the Bills of Mortality only,
before vaccination was established, exceeded 5,000, whereas in the
course of last year only 300 died of the distemper.” And in the Report
for 1838 this gross error is repeated; while in the next year (1839) the
conclusion is drawn “that 4,000 lives are saved every year in London
since vaccination so largely superseded variolation.”[3]
The Board of the National Vaccine Establishment consisted of the
President and four Censors of the Royal College of Physicians, and the
Master and two senior Wardens of the College of Surgeons. We cannot
possibly suppose that they knew or believed that they were publishing
untruths and grossly deceiving the public. We must, therefore, fall back
upon the supposition that they were careless to such an extent as not
to find out that they were authorizing successive statements of the same
quantity as inconsistent with each other as 2,000 and 5,000.
The next example is given by Dr. Lettsom, who, in his evidence before
the Parliamentary Committee in 1802, calculated the small-pox deaths
of Great Britain and Ireland before vaccination at 36,000 annually; by
taking 3,000 as the annual mortality in London and multiplying by twelve,
because the population was estimated to be twelve times as large. He
first takes a number which is much too high, and then assumes that the
mortality in the town, village, and country populations was the same as
in overcrowded, filthy London! Small-pox was always present in London,
while Sir Gilbert Blane tells us that in many parts of the country it
was quite unknown for periods of twenty, thirty, or forty years. In 1782
Mr. Connah, a surgeon at Seaford, in Sussex, only knew of one small-pox
death in eleven years among a population of 700. Cross, the historian
of the Norwich epidemic in 1819, states that previous to 1805 small-pox
was little known in this city of 40,000 inhabitants, and was for a time
almost extinct; and yet this gross error of computing the small-pox
mortality of the whole country from that of London (and computing it from
wrong data) was not only accepted at the time, but has been repeated
again and again down to the present day as an ascertained fact!
In a speech in Parliament in defence of vaccination, Sir Lyon Playfair
gave 4,000 per million as the average London death-rate by small-pox
before vaccination—a number nearly double that of the last twenty years
of the century, which alone affords a fair comparison. But far more
amazing is the statement by the late Dr. W. B. Carpenter, in a letter to
the _Spectator_ of April, 1881, that “a hundred years ago the small-pox
mortality of London alone, with its then population of under a million,
was often greater in a six months’ epidemic than that of the twenty
millions of England and Wales now is in any whole year.” The facts,
well known to every enquirer, are: that the very highest small-pox
mortality in the last century in a year was 3,992 in 1772, while in 1871
it was =7,912= in London, or more than double; and in the same year, in
England and Wales, it was =23,000=. This amazing and almost incredible
misstatement was pointed out and acknowledged privately, but never
withdrawn publicly!
The late Mr. Ernest Hart, a medical man, editor of the _British Medical
Journal_, and a great authority on sanitation, in his work entitled _The
Truth about Vaccination_, surpasses even Dr. Carpenter in the monstrosity
of his errors. At page 35 of the first edition (1880), he states that
in the forty years 1728-57 and 1771-80, the average annual small-pox
mortality of London was about 18,000 per million living. The actual
average mortality, from the tables given in the Second Report of the
Royal Commission, page 290, was a little over 2,000, the worst periods
having been chosen; and taking the lowest estimates of the population at
the time, the mortality per million would have been under 3,000. This
great authority, therefore, has multiplied the real number by six! In a
later edition this statement is omitted, but in the first edition it was
no mere misprint, for it was triumphantly dwelt upon over a whole page
and compared with modern rates of mortality.
Yet one more official misstatement. About the year 1884 the National
Health Society, with the approval of the Local Government Board, issued a
tract entitled _Facts concerning Vaccination for Heads of Families_, in
which appeared the statement, “_Before the introduction of vaccination,
small-pox killed 40,000 persons yearly in this country._” We have
already shown that Dr. Lettsom’s figure, 36,000, was utterly unfounded,
and probably three or four times greater than the truth. Here we have
a semi-official and widely-distributed statement even more remote from
the truth. In later issues of the same tract this particular statement
is withdrawn, and a different but equally erroneous one substituted.
Thus: “Before its discovery (vaccination) _the mortality from small-pox
in London was forty times greater than it is now_.” This is an altogether
vague and misleading statement. If it means that in _some_ years of the
last century it was forty times greater than in _some_ years of this
century, it is misleading, because even within the last thirty years some
years have a mortality not only forty but eighty and even 200 times as
great as others. (In 1875 there were ten deaths per million, while in
1871 there were 2,420 deaths per million.) If it means on an average of
say twenty years, it is false. For the twenty years 1869-98 the mortality
was about 300 per million, while for the last twenty years before the
discovery of small-pox it was about 2,000 per million, or less than
_seven_ times as much instead of _forty_ times!
This same tract is full of other equally gross misstatements. It tells
us, in large, black type, “_With due care in the performance of the
operation, no risk of any injurious effects from it need be feared._” The
Registrar-General himself shows us that this is false in his Report for
1895, Table 17, p. lii.:
COW-POX AND OTHER EFFECTS OF VACCINATION
Year. Deaths.
1881 58
1882 65
1883 55
1884 53
1885 52
1886 45
1887 45
1888 45
1889 58
1890 43
1891 43
1892 58
1893 59
1894 50
1895 56
An average of 52 children officially murdered every year, and officially
acknowledged, is termed “alleged injury,” which need not be feared! And
these cruel falsehoods are spread broadcast over the country, and the
tract bears upon its title-page—
[_Revised by the Local Government Board, and issued with their
sanction_].
As the tract bears no date, I cannot tell whether it is still issued; but
it was in circulation up to the time when the Commission was sitting,
and it is simply disgraceful that a Government Department should ever
have given its official sanction to such a tissue of misrepresentations
and palpable false statements. For these 785 deaths in fifteen years,
and 390 in the preceding twenty-two years (classed as from erysipelas
after vaccination), no one has been punished, and no compensation or
even official apology has been given to the thousand sorrowing families.
And we may be sure that these acknowledged deaths are only a small
portion of what have really occurred, since the numbers have increased
considerably in the later period, during which more attention has been
given to such deaths and more inquests held. It is certain that for
every such death acknowledged by the medical man concerned, many are
concealed under the easy method of stating some of the later symptoms
as the cause of death. Thus, Mr. Henry May, Medical Officer of Health,
candidly states as follows: “In certificates given by us voluntarily,
and to which the public have access, it is scarcely to be expected that
a medical man will give opinions which may tell against or reflect upon
himself in any way. In such cases he will most likely tell the truth, but
not the whole truth, and assign some prominent symptom of the disease
as the cause of death. As instances of cases which may tell against the
medical man himself, I will mention erysipelas from vaccination, and
puerperal fever. A death from the first cause occurred not long ago in my
practice; and although I had not vaccinated the child, yet, in my desire
to preserve vaccination from reproach, I omitted all mention of it from
my certificate of death.” (See _Birmingham Medical Review_, Vol III.,
pp. 34, 35.) That such _suppressio veri_ is no new thing, but has been
going on during the whole period of vaccination, is rendered probable by
a statement in the _Medical Observer_ of 1810, by Dr. Maclean. He says:
“Very few deaths from cow-pox appear in the Bills of Mortality, owing to
the means which have been used to suppress a knowledge of them. Neither
were deaths, diseases, and failures transmitted in great abundance
from the country, not because they did not happen, but because some
practitioners were interested in not seeing them, and others who did see
them were afraid of announcing what they knew.”
As an example of the number of cases occurring all over the country, Mr.
Charles Fox, a medical man residing at Cardiff, has published fifty-six
cases of illness following vaccination, of which seventeen resulted in
death. In only two of these, where he himself gave the certificate,
was vaccination mentioned. All of these cases were examined by himself
personally. Among those who survived, several were permanently injured
in health, and some were crippled for life; while in most of the cases
the inflammation and eruptions are so painful, and the sufferings of the
children so great and so prolonged, that the mother endures continuous
mental torture, lasting for weeks, months, or even years. And if _one_
medical man can record such a mass of injury and disease in which
vaccination was the palpable starting-point and certainly a contributory
cause, what must be the total mass of unrecorded suffering throughout
the whole country? Considering this and other evidence, together with
the admitted and very natural concealment by the doctors concerned, “to
save vaccination from reproach,” the estimate of Mr. Alfred Milnes,
a statistician who has paid special attention to the subject, that
the officially admitted deaths must be at least multiplied by twelve
to obtain the real deaths from vaccination, we shall arrive at the
terrible number of over 600 children and adults killed annually by this
compulsory operation; while judging from the proportion of permanent
injury (twenty-eight) in Mr. Fox’s fifty-six cases and seventeen deaths,
about 1,000 persons annually must suffer from it throughout their
lives! As confirmatory of even this large amount, the testimony of Mr.
Davidson, Medical Officer of Health for Congleton, and formerly a Public
Vaccinator, is important. He began an inquiry into the alleged injurious
effects of vaccination, without believing that they were serious. The
outcome of his investigation was startling to him. In his Annual Report
for 1893, he says: “In the investigation of a single vaccination period,
the fact was revealed that in quite fifty per cent. of all vaccinated in
that period (about seventy), the results were abnormal, and, in a large
number of these very grave injuries had been inflicted. That the results
of the practice are the same elsewhere as in Congleton I have no reason
to doubt, for judging from what I have seen of his method of vaccinating,
our Public Vaccinator is as careful as it seems possible for a Public
Vaccinator to be.”
This evidence of Mr. Davidson is especially important, because it reveals
the fact that, as I stated some pages back, neither Public Vaccinators
nor ordinary medical men usually know anything of the injurious effects
of vaccination, except in such individual cases as may occur in their
practice, while all around them there may be a mass of evil results
which, when systematically investigated, proves as unexpected as it is
startling in its amount.
This brief exposition of medical and official misstatements of
facts and figures, always in favour of vaccination, might have been
largely increased, but it is already sufficient to demonstrate the
position I take, which is, that in this matter of Official and
Compulsory Vaccination, both doctors and Government officials, however
highly placed, however eminent, however honourable, are yet utterly
untrustworthy. Beginning in the early years of the century, and
continuing to our own times, we find the most gross and palpable blunders
in figures—but always on the side of vaccination—and, on the testimony
of medical men themselves, a more or less continuous perversion of
the official records of vaccinal injury “in order to save vaccination
from reproach.” Let this always be remembered in any discussion of the
question. The facts and figures of the medical profession, and of
Government officials, in regard to the question of vaccination, _must
never be accepted without verification_. And when we consider that
these misstatements, and concealments, and denials of injury, have been
going on throughout the whole of the century; that penal legislation
has been founded on them; that homes of the poor have been broken up;
that thousands have been harried by police and magistrates, have been
imprisoned and treated in every way as felons; and that, at the rate now
officially admitted, a thousand children have been certainly killed by
vaccination during the last twenty years, and an unknown but probably
much larger number injured for life, we are driven to the conclusion that
those responsible for these reckless misstatements and their terrible
results have, thoughtlessly and ignorantly but none the less certainly,
been guilty of a crime against liberty, against health, and against
humanity, which will, before many years have passed, be universally held
to be one of the foulest blots on the civilization of the nineteenth
century.[4]