VACCINATION.

Freethought Review, Volume I, Issue 9, 1 June 1884, Page 14

VACCINATION.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE FREETIIOUGHT REVIEW. Sir, — Since vaccination is compulsory, it becomes a fair question for discussion. On this ground I feel sure you will grant me occasional space in your valuable columns to review the subject. I need hardly say that I am strongly opposed to it, and flatter myself that I was about the first parent summoned in England for noncompliance (about thirteen years ago). Since then, and especially of late years, a very strong feeling has been rapidly extending through Europe against vaccination. I have also frequently been before the R.M. in New Zealand for not allowing my children to be vaccinated, and lately have formed an Anti-vaccination Society here, which numbers over 100 parents—all pledged to have no more children vaccinated, and use all legitimate means to get the compulsory clauses of the Vaccination Act repealed, I base my grounds for objection on several reasons; ist. That vaccination is based upon no scientific foundations. 2nd. That it is no specific for smallpox. 3rd. That if it were, the danger of transmitting other and worse diseases, by vaccination, than smallpox itself are so frequent and certain, that it is not economy to damage the constitutions of otherwise healthy children, and often kill them as a sacrifice to medical dogma. 4th. That since we boast of our Political and Religious freedom, we should not rest satisfied until we can also add to our social freedom by urging our representatives in Parliament to at once move in the direction to abolish the compulsory clauses of the Vaccination Act, This filthy system of vaccination was first conceived by Jenner, in 1799, for which he received or was awarded the sum of £30,000, and, as showing that he had no scientific foundation for his theory, I cannot do better than quote his own biographer" Baron Jenner’s first idea was that the so-called cowpox was an antidote for smallpox [I might here mention that the best veterinary surgeons of the day say that there is not such a disease, but what Jenner (and until recently was) called cowpox is only an ulcerous inflammation in newly calved cows, from irritation of the udders, caused by constant whisking off of flies, which at that time seem to have an attraction, which is very inconvenient to the unfortunate cow] ; was a specific, partly because the cow was a domesticated animal, and partly because he knew one or two dairy maids who had had what was called cowpox, and had not had smallpox, and, without further investigation, he launched forth his theory of vaccination, which was guaranteed to stamp out smallpox. And this is how it has done it. Vaccination was made compulsory in 1853 ; since then the United Kingdom has been visited with three epidemics of smallpox, and the deaths were:—lßs7-9, 14,244; 1863-5, 20,059; 1871-2,44,840. These figures are taken from the Registar-General's returns for 1881. and lest some of your readers think it unfair to take any particular years for unfavourable illustrations, I will quote from the same good authority for the three decades since vaccination was made compulsory in England. DEATHS FROM SMALL POX. 1851-60,7,150; iS6i-70, 8,347; 1871-80, 15,551. These figures clearly show that instead of relieving the disease the contrary is the result, and that the more we vaccinate, the more deaths from smallpox! But I am digressing. In this letter I wish to show that Jenner had no scientific foundation for his theory. His first idea was the so-called cowpox,_ but after being confronted by numerous failures, and those principally amongst men of high position, who took smallpox after vaccination, he was only able to stall off an indignant number of victims by resorting to a further concoction of filth and disease as a sure specific. Banon's " Life of Jenner" (p.p. 130, 238, 241, 254) says : —"Jenner held that swinepox, smallpox, cowpox, and various other similar affections, arc all only varieties of the same disease, and he inoculated with swinepox his eldest son Edward, who died of consumption, as did also Edward Phipps, the first patient whom Jenner inoculated with cowpox." Jenner also largely used equine or horsepox (a disease known as grease in the heel), and supplied his friend Banon and others with it. Jenner and his friends also held that the virus of various animals was equally efficacious with cowpox in warding off smallpox. The people at large, and probably a large part of the medical profession, are not aware of the sources from which vaccine lymph is derived, I have ample proof that in England the bulk of it is procured by inoculating cattle with

smallpox virus. This throws them into a disease which causes

ulcers on the udder, and the matter accumulated there is called by doctors pure lymph, but in reality is only man cowpox. I am not prepared to say that the same process goes on in New Zealand, but since the Goverment supply the whole of the Colony from Canterbury, it looks rather ominous.—l am &c.,

_ , , E. Purser. Blenheim.