VACCINATION.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3995, 18 October 1881, Page 2

VACCINATION.

(To the Editor of the Evbnikg Stab.)

Sib,—Would " Parent" who wrote a short time ago in your columns on com* pulsory vaccination, kindly say. if any movement has been made with a view to the formation of a society here, or for the purpose of bringing the matter before the Legislature P It is to the interest of the doctors in several ways to support the dogma of vaccination, but the Legislature of the country should see that this very questionable dogma is not forced on people, seeing that those who object are not the uneducated, but are men of the highest culture and experience—in many cases medical men, who after a long trial have given up the delusion and the emoluments resulting from it. Such men as Herbert Spencer, Dr Garth Wilkinson, the Premier of England (W. E. Grlad« stone), John Bright, W. E. Forster, the Eight Hon. Earl Percy, Professor New* man, aud a. great number of others who are eminent in medical or general science. Such are the men in the home country who are against compulsory vaccination. The statistics also are against it, for since the original Act in England there hare been three great smallpox epidemics, with the following results, as shewn by the Registrar-General's lie turn .-—(lst) '

1857-59, there were 12,244 deaths; (2nd) 1863 65, there were 20,059 deaths; (3rd) 1870 72,' there were 44,840 deaths! Allowing for increase of population at 7 per cent, from tho first to the second epidemic, there is an increase of small* pox in the same period of 44 per cent., and allowing for an increase of population between the second \ and third epidemics of 10 per cent., there is shown an increase of small pox of 120 per cent; In this remarkable fashion has the Jennerian nostrum stamped out small pox! The time for action has come.—l am, &c,

A. P.