Chapter XLIV: The Struggle for Freedom (1)

The temper and conduct of Parliament satisfied Mr. Gibbs and his associates that they must turn again to the people and achieve success through their instruction, enlightenment and fears. At this juncture, however, the labours of Mr. Gibbs terminated. He had married Miss Griffiths (for many years secretary of the Ladies’ Sanitary Association), and had gone with her on a tour through the United Kingdom, holding meetings and discussing the evidence and report of the House of Commons Committee. His last public appearance was at Cork; proceeding thence to Dublin, he died there after a short illness on 1st December, 1871.

The removal of Mr. Gibbs was a severe discouragement; but a good cause may always be trusted to evolve its own prophets. Mrs. Gibbs, as became a wise woman, felt that she could not better honour her husband than by consecrating herself to his work. She formed the Mother’s Anti-Compulsory Vaccination League; and until her own death, 10th November, 1878, devoted her training, experience and intelligence to awakening an interest in those divine laws of life of which a practice like vaccination is a deliberate negation.

In 1872 Mr. John Pickering, of Leeds, in conjunction with Mr. Henry Pitman, started the _The Anti-Vaccinator_ fortnightly, and continued it for a year. To maintain such a journal is far from easy. As Napoleon III. observed to Cobden, “There are a good many free-traders in France, but you must remember that the people are not organised, whilst the trades which prey upon the people are organised and are always alert.” To overthrow the trade in vaccination, established, endowed and enforced, is to encounter the enmity and opposition of the organised profession at whose instigation and for whose advantage vaccination was established, endowed and enforced; and to effect the overthrow, it is necessary to raise up a countervailing force among a public apathetic, ignorant, and credulous as to medical mysteries. The overthrow might be thought hopeless were it not for the leverage afforded by the compulsory law. Every parent who has wisdom and love enough to refuse to have his child vaccinated, is enabled to bear his testimony in court, to have it certified by fine or imprisonment, and to have his triumph published for encouragement and repetition. There is no preaching like such practice, for which the evil law itself provides opportunity.

Mr. Pickering was fined over and over again, and in his _Anti-Vaccinator_ he proved abundantly that he had reason and science without end for his steadfast resistance to the legalised superstition. In 1876 he was enabled to strike a blow for the truth not likely to be forgotten, especially in Yorkshire. The statistics of the Leeds Smallpox Hospital had been published after the fashion of similar concoctions--an insignificant mortality among the vaccinated being set against a prodigious mortality among the unvaccinated. The statistics were denounced as fictitious, and proof of the accusation being demanded, Mr. Pickering produced the proof.[293] The requisite inquiry was tedious and difficult; and because tedious and difficult it was presumed it would never be attempted, and that impunity was assured. The exposure demonstrated afresh how little dependence is to be placed on the collocation of figures by those whose pride and interest are committed to a foregone conclusion.

The severity of the compulsory law is subject to frequent abatement in its administration by poor law guardians. They appoint and pay vaccination officers, and it is for them to consider and, to sanction repeated prosecutions. Hence a majority, or an energetic minority of guardians adverse to vaccination may do much to frustrate its public administration. What is practicable in this way was shown by the Keighley guardians in 1876. They declined to prosecute; they disregarded the admonitions of the Local Government Board; and they refused to obey a mandamus issued from the Queen’s Bench. They were thereon arrested for contempt of court, and committed to York Castle, from which they were released after nominal submission. They were re-elected by the ratepayers, and did as before, but more discreetly.

There is a proverb about taking a horse to the water and trying to make him drink, which applies to legislation when equally disliked by those expected to enforce it and by those on whom it is to be enforced. Under such conditions the compulsory act is of no effect in Keighley: those who like may be vaccinated, and those who do not, need not. The majority are unvaccinated and nowhere is smallpox less feared. In several towns where public sentiment is similarly enlightened, something of the same freedom is enjoyed. In many parishes it is the rule to disallow repeated prosecutions: the vaccination officer fulfils his commission in prosecuting once, and then his hand is stayed. In some parishes those who are known to be opposed to vaccination are passed over on the tacit understanding that they keep quiet as to their indulgence; a course of procedure extremely injurious to the good cause, damping enthusiasm and suppressing that conflict and agitation by which it prospers. In other parishes no quarter is allowed: the law is worked with rigour. Prosecution follows prosecution until either fury exhausts itself, or the nonconformist is driven elsewhere.

Such persistent prosecution often becomes a public scandal. To a parent with adequate means, the fines and costs are trivial, and are amply repaid by the satisfaction of setting guardians and justices at defiance, and publishing far and wide his contempt for the vaccine superstition. On the other hand, a parent in humble circumstances is often put to cruel straits between his love and duty to his child and the comfort of conformity.

In the difficulty thus created by the law, the Local Government Board is frequently appealed to for advice; and in 1876 the Board, at that time under the presidency of Mr. Sclater-Booth, addressed a letter of counsel to the Evesham guardians, which, translated from official circumlocution, came to this--Prosecute until you are satisfied your antagonist cannot be overcome: then consider whether you had not better desist; for he may obtain sympathy, and the law and the rite alike suffer discredit in public estimation. In Cowper’s words, “Safe policy, but hateful.” This Evesham letter has become a standard document, and is regularly posted by the Board to guardians in perplexity as to the extent of vengeance they should execute. Such is the variety of valour taught from Whitehall--“Fight until you discover you are not likely to prevail; and take care to leave off before you make yourselves hateful or ridiculous.” Law was never, perhaps, reduced to baser terms.

Several attempts have been made to modify the law as recommended by the Vaccination Committee of 1871 and approved by the House of Commons. Mr. Pease (now Sir Joseph) introduced a bill with that purpose in 1872 and 1878, limiting the penalty in any case to 20s., but without success. In 1880 the Gladstone administration, fresh from the country, and flushed with good intentions, brought forward a similar bill, but dropped it in abject fright in consequence of the clamour of the medical trade unions, who fancied their vested interest in vaccination endangered. Nevertheless, those responsible for the law at the Local Government Board avow their disapprobation of repeated prosecutions, and regret that Parliament does not appear to be of a like mind, reckless of the fact that Parliament is rarely unwilling to consent to an administrative change when those in authority state the reasons for it, and insist on the necessity of giving them effect.

Mr. Forster, when moving for the Committee of 1871 in the House of Commons, spoke as if no member was prepared to dispute the efficacy of vaccination against smallpox; and, though the assumption was excessive, it was not far from correct. Even Mr. Candlish only objected to the injustice of compulsion. Since then considerable progress has been made. Mr. P. A. Taylor, who shared the position of Mr. Candlish, subsequently examined the history and evidences of vaccination for himself, with the inevitable result: he discovered that he had been imposed upon, and having made sure, straightway began to make known his discovery to others. Mr. C. H. Hopwood, equally enlightened, moved Parliament for various statistical returns which exhibited the influence of enforced vaccination, in authentic form and on a national scale, as a factor of death and a communicator and aggravator of other maladies. In conjunction, Mr. Taylor and Mr. Hopwood have raised the standard of resistance to vaccination in the House of Commons; and what Mr. Forster in 1871 set forth as indisputable, is now openly and unanswerably disputed; for those who have come to the defence, like Sir Lyon Playfair and Sir Charles Dilke, have been convicted of unquestionable mis-statements which could only pass muster as addressed to uncritical credulity.

Parliament is the creature of public opinion, and to arouse and inform that opinion and to bring it to fruit in legislation, it is necessary to agitate and to organise. Consequent on the death of Mr. R. B. Gibbs in 1871, the League, of which he was leader, underwent a course of vicissitude until, in 1876, it was revived under the presidency of Mr. William Hume-Rothery, with the _National Anti-Compulsory Vaccination Reporter_ for its organ, edited by Mrs. Hume-Rothery. The energy and ability which Mr. and Mrs. Hume-Rothery have brought to their arduous enterprise have been unwearied and conspicuous--their self-consecration has been unreserved. Sometimes they have been charged with vehemence and intolerance, but when we consider the craft with which they are confronted on one side, and the credulity on the other, the misery and mortality resulting from the cruel practice, and the monstrous oppression exercised on those who resist the despicable superstition, it is not easy to be calm, or to adjust invective to a scruple. “Thou shouldst not speak so strongly, John,” said a Friend to her husband, when denouncing some iniquity. “Ah! Jane,” he replied, “thou knowest not what I keep back.”

It is frequently said that anti-vaccinators are fanatical, which may be more or less true; but if in quest of fanaticism, where shall we find it so ruthless, so untruthful, or so mercenary as among vaccinators? Take for example, Jenner, or Ring, or Seaton, or Marson, or Simon. The fury of anti-vaccinators stands excused by the strongest reason that can justify or ennoble fury. If a father has a child injured or killed by vaccination, and is threatened (as is often the case) with a second attack on his family life, with what temper may he be expected to regard the law? When Macduff’s children were slaughtered, it was only in Macbeth’s blood that he could ease his soul, and with Macduff goes the sympathy of every human heart. So it is with those bereaved by vaccination; only for them there is no personal Macbeth to receive his deserts, but a bodiless law.

It is not difficult to philosophise over other people’s wrongs, or advise forbearance where there is no sense of hurt; but fury and indignation constitute the natural reaction against outrage and injustice, and where feeble or absent denote defective moral sensibility. Nevertheless, fury and indignation are poorly spent if allowed to exhaust themselves in vituperation. Their proper use is to give vigour to action, and, invested in prudence, to achieve swift and sure redemption. Wise is the advice--

“Prune thou thy words, the thoughts control
That o’er thee swell and throng:
They will condense within thy soul,
And change to purpose strong.”

The National League holds an annual conference in some convenient centre, to which representatives from affiliated societies are appointed. Many of these societies co-operate for the defence of their members under prosecution; they organise public meetings and discussions; provide lectures; distribute tracts; bring to light vaccination disasters; frustrate the attempts of medical men to get up smallpox panics; and, in short, to do all in their power to turn confidence aside from a magical, misleading and mischievous prescription to trust in the common conditions of health, as verified by science and continual experience.

It is needless to say that these societies excite much annoyance and evoke much bad language from the practitioners whose craft they discredit and despoil. Thus, for example, the British Medical Association, in a petition addressed to Government in 1879, protesting against any relaxation of the compulsory law, and signed by several thousand members of the profession, gave voice to the trade grievance--

The outcry against Compulsory Vaccination is mainly due to
certain interested persons [_interested in what?_] who, by
the dissemination of inflammatory literature and distorted
statements, stir up opposition to Vaccination on the part of
ignorant and thoughtless people.

Here what is wished to be taken for true is set forth as fact. Whatever the opponents of vaccination may be, they are neither ignorant or thoughtless, nor do they influence the ignorant and thoughtless. On the contrary, it is their exact acquaintance with the history and theories, the inutility and dangers of the multiform rite, designated vaccination, which renders them such dangerous and disagreeable antagonists. Further be it said, compulsory acquaintance with vaccination has been for thousands an introduction to vigorous intellectual life. It has demonstrated the fallibility of authority, and how it is possible for what is accounted established beyond dispute to be false to the core. Certain it is that ere long vaccination will be ranked among the crassest of human follies, and what force that exposure will lend to scepticism in conflict with other forms of conventional opinion, may be left to the consideration of the judicious reader.

The London Society for the Abolition of Compulsory Vaccination was formed in 1880 with objects thus defined--

1.--The Abolition of Compulsory Vaccination.

2.--The Diffusion of Knowledge concerning Vaccination.

3.--The Maintenance of an Office in London for the Publication of
Literature relating to Vaccination, and as a Centre of Action and
Information.

An office was opened in Victoria Street, Westminster, with Mr. William Young, as secretary, and _The Vaccination Inquirer_, established by Mr. William Tebb in 1879, was adopted as the organ of the Society. The executive committee, liberally assisted by the Countess de Noailles, Mr. P. A. Taylor, Mr. Tebb, and others, have been enabled to make many and visible marks on public opinion, which by all means possible they are ever intent to repeat. Mr. J. G. Talbot, M.P. for Oxford University, took early opportunity to stigmatise the London Society as a Murder League, and Dr. Barrow, president of the British Medical Association in 1881, as “a Disgrace to Humanity”--these and similar amenities being taken as badges of honour and tokens of success. The London Society has also actively co-operated in successive International Anti-Vaccination Congresses--at Paris in 1880, at Cologne in 1881, and at Berne in 1883.

Of late years the literature of anti-vaccination has been steadily increasing in volume, variety and power. A notable effort to bring the question within range of common apprehension was the publication in 1876 of _Our Medicine Men_, by Mr. H. Strickland Constable. Apart from vaccination, _Our Medicine Men_ is a pleasant book, full of anecdote, good humour, shrewdness and excellent philosophy, not likely to be forgotten by those who make its acquaintance.[294]

A series of _Vaccination Tracts_,[295] fourteen in number, was commenced by Mr. Wm. Young in 1877 and completed by Dr. Garth Wilkinson in 1879. Fuseli, reproaching his contemporaries for their indifference to Flaxman, said, “You English, you see with your ears”; and Fuseli’s observation recurs as we think of the limited repute of Dr. Wilkinson; not that any more than Flaxman he is unknown, but because he is so _inadequately_ known, probably because he is so frequently at variance with the fashionable science of the day, nor has paid court to its fashionable professors. Nevertheless, those who have sense and courage to recognise what is admirable without direction find in these _Tracts_ not only vaccination made an end of, but thoughts new and deep, with felicities of diction and cadence that every connoisseur in words must appreciate and revert to with delight. However wide our acquaintance with English literature, a variety of singular affluence and originality remains until Dr. Garth Wilkinson has been discovered.

It is a mistake to suppose that all medical men believe in vaccination in one or any of its varieties. Those who use their eyes and are not bewitched by prescription or self-interest, recognise the failure and disasters of the practice, but may not care to set themselves at open variance with their profession. Many privately confess their vanishing or vanished faith in the rite, adding, perhaps, that its dangers are exaggerated, and that it does little harm with due precaution, whilst affording a comfortable sense of security to its recipients. Others go further, and wish the discredit of compulsion were removed from the practice, when they would leave it to their patients to decide for themselves to vaccinate or not to vaccinate, they disowning responsibility. A nobler few decline to hold any terms of compromise with the imposture, and among these Mr. Enoch Robinson is conspicuous. He has lectured and debated against vaccination, and by his temperate and competent advocacy has made converts of the most unwilling and prejudiced. Moved by a popular compilation in defence of vaccination, he published a reply to it in 1880, entitled, _Can Disease protect Health?_[296]--a polemic cogent and perspicuous, and ingenuous as its opposite was the reverse. As illustrative of the character of the medical press, it may be mentioned that advertisements of Mr. Robinson’s pamphlet were declined by _The Lancet_ and _The British Medical Journal_, it being their rule to exclude announcements injurious to the interests involved in vaccination--surely in such quarters a superfluous precaution. Some people appear to fancy that intolerance is a peculium of theologians; but they would find abundant cause for a different opinion if familiar with the medical world.

It is said that inasmuch as the rising generation of medical men are more roundly educated than their predecessors, they are likely to deal with vaccination in a more scientific and independent spirit. The experience of Dr. W. J. Collins at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital lends reason to the anticipation. Study and observation confirmed Dr. Collins in his father’s practical judgment, which he has re-stated firmly and temperately on proper occasions; supporting it with the wide and open evidence at his command. He has been heard with patience and favour, nor has he encountered any but honourable opposition; proving how much depends on the manner in which a man fights his battle, and how much is conceded to courage with courtesy. Dr. Collins has argued, “Ought Vaccination to be enforced?” before the Abernethian Society; he has met Dr. W. B. Carpenter in public debate; he has discussed the Vaccination Disaster at Norwich in 1882; he has answered Sir Lyon Playfair; and he has brought the doctrine of evolution to bear on the generation of disease.[297] If sometimes we refer to the medical profession with severity, the recollection of members like Dr. Collins operates as a check. Still we must be just. Professions, like kindred trade unions, are controlled by their interests, and there never was church, or community, or corporation which surrendered any source of gain, save by external compulsion. Public vaccination in England represents a medical endowment of £100,000 annually, which the profession, true to the law of its being, cannot renounce voluntarily; and there is no sense in shutting our eyes to that certainty. Of course, it would be absurd to charge medical men individually with defending vaccination because of the gain attached thereto: nothing of the kind is intended: but as Hobbes observed of mankind in the gross, “Even the axioms of geometry would be disputed if their interests were peculiarly affected by them.”

When, therefore, it is said that vaccination is a medical question which may be left to medical men to settle, the answer is--“Nay: vaccination is paid for out of the public pocket, and whatever the evidence adverse to its usefulness, it will be upheld as beneficial by those who profit by it. If those who pay do not object, those who are paid never will. In face of common experience, we hold it cannot be otherwise.”

There are fashions in medicine as in millinery: they are started; they flourish; they pass away; but the permanence of any medical fashion might be secured if fortified by endowment. Venesection was once in vogue; now it is scarcely known; but if in its heyday a law had been passed for its performance at the public expense, a ring of official venesectors would have been created to justify the practice against all gainsayers; to deny or explain away every disaster and fatality; and at all hazards preserve its credit from reproach; whilst it would cost something like a constitutional struggle for the nation to escape from the imposition. It is thus with vaccination. Left to itself, it would, like venesection, have dropped into disuse; but it acquired permanence from the initial error--the endowment of the National Vaccine Establishment in 1808.

The enforcement of vaccination supplies a yet stronger reason for public interference. A church endowed by the State might be endured by Dissenters, but if submission to any of its offices were made compulsory, endurance would give place to active resistance. Such is the case with vaccination. As it is endowed and enforced, it is hopeless to try to reserve it from general discussion and denunciation. Since citizens are liable to fine and imprisonment who withhold their children from the lancet, it becomes their duty to satisfy themselves as to the character of the operation for which they are taxed, and with which their families are menaced; and should their convictions be adverse to its utility and safety, they cannot do their fellow-citizens better service than by bearing the testimony of open resistance.

Thus vaccination is translated to politics and made every man’s business; whilst the interest created by its endowment and enforcement deprives its medical advocates of judicial authority in the controversy. It would be as reasonable to expect slaveholders to denounce slavery, or protected manufacturers to advocate free trade as for those whose professional prestige and advantage are involved in the practice to speak the truth about vaccination. Let us be reasonable. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? We should not require of average human nature the virtue of its rarer forms. Like all monopolies, vaccination endowed and enforced, is defended with unanimity from within, and must be attacked and overthrown from without--nevertheless be it said with _some_ assistance from within, and that assistance most efficient.

It is therefore no cause for surprise that a large share in the agitation against compulsory vaccination has fallen to laymen. Mr. George S. Gibbs (cousin of John Gibbs and brother of R. B. Gibbs) has for thirty years maintained a criticism, chiefly statistical, of the official defences of vaccination, characterised throughout by an accuracy which has never been impugned.[298]

Mr. H. D. Dudgeon has been described as “a veritable and venerable apostle of health.” With a consummate knowledge of hygiene, and a profound faith in its power to overcome zymotic disease, he has set forth its principles with such lucidity and persistency that he has gone far to educate Leicester in setting at naught the vaccine superstition. To the standard assertion of the vaccinators, that sanitation is good against all febrile affections, except smallpox, for which there is no preventive save vaccination (the sovereign variety being conveniently undefined) he has been an opponent merciless as truth. Regret is frequently expressed that the abundant information and admirable sense which pervade Mr. Dudgeon’s writing have been confined to newspapers and occasional pamphlets, but it is probable his teaching has been all the more fruitful because adapted to immediate circumstances.[299] The word spoken in due season how good it is!

The name of Mr. Alexander Wheeler of Darlington is familiar wherever vaccination is brought under discussion. Mr. Wheeler’s interest in the subject was first excited, he writes, by Mr. G. S. Gibbs, “whose scepticism as to its virtue seemed to me absurd”--

Mr. Gibbs inquired whether I had examined the question, and when
I confessed that I had not, he asked if I would read Baron’s
_Life of Dr. Jenner_. Nothing loath, I accepted the loan of the
volumes. Doubts began to trouble me with the first volume, and
the second quite upset my confidence in Vaccination as a positive
preventive of Smallpox. I then set to work to ascertain with
what care I could, whether there was any truth in the assertion
that Vaccination diminished Smallpox or modified its virulence.
The process of determination was not rapid, but long before I
had formed a definite opinion, I was satisfied that _Compulsory_
Vaccination was indefensible; and my first efforts were directed
to the protection of my own children from the infliction.
Unsatisfied as to what Vaccination was, or what the Vaccinator
effected, I clearly saw that the State had no right to enforce a
practice by no means harmless, nor preventive of Smallpox, nor
easy to explain the use of.

As lecturer, debater and newspaper controversialist, Mr. Wheeler has acquired well-earned distinction. Knowing far more of vaccination, its history, varieties, consequences, and statistics than his adversaries, they are usually overthrown with a dexterity realised as horrible and astonishing. Like savages with bows and arrows, they come forth in the innocence of faith to encounter arms of precision. In 1878 Mr. Wheeler held a debate with Dr. George Wyld, an enthusiastic advocate of the cowpox discarded by Jenner as impotent against smallpox. Sir Thomas Chambers presided, and the question discussed being, “Is Vaccination worthy of National Support?” How rash and how futile was Dr. Wyld’s championship is recorded in the report of the debate.[300]

Mr. William Tebb is another well-known name in connection with the movement against vaccination. For a time dubious, his attention was quickened and his course decided by the summons of the St. Pancras guardians to have his daughter, Beatrice, vaccinated. His refusal was followed by prosecution after prosecution in the Marylebone police-court, until at last the guardians gave up the contest as hopeless.[301] It was a bad day for vaccination when the compulsory law was applied to Mr. Tebb. As with many others, persecution made of him an inflexible and active antagonist. His tongue, his pen, and his purse, coupled with untiring industry and eminent executive ability, have been devoted to the exposure and overthrow of the conjoint superstition and tyranny. Mr. Tebb is a fine exemplification of Sir T. Fowell Buxton’s opinion, “Vigour, energy, resolution, firmness of purpose--these carry the day. Is there one whom difficulties dishearten, who bends to the storm? He will do little. Is there one who will conquer? That kind of man never fails:” adding, “The longer I live, the more I am certain that the great difference between men, between the feeble and the powerful, is energy--invincible determination, a purpose once fixed, and then death or victory. That quality will do anything that can he done in this world.”[302]

Mr. P. A. Taylor’s speeches in the House of Commons have been widely read, but his Letter to Dr. W. B. Carpenter has been, perhaps, the most effective contribution to the good cause.[303] Dr. Carpenter had volunteered for the defence of vaccination, and had challenged Mr. Taylor; and being of a credulous and uncritical habit of mind, he collected and recited the various legends and factitious statistics that form the body of vaccination, with additions from his private resources; thus constituting himself an objective of attack, and providing Mr. Taylor with an excellent opportunity. Mr. Taylor accepted the challenge: he captured and destroyed Dr. Carpenter’s positions seriatim, leaving him routed and helpless. The Letter has had an immense circulation, and its influence on public opinion is manifesting itself in a thousand ways. Neither Dr. Carpenter nor any vaccinator has ventured to reply to Mr. Taylor; the fact being that no reply is possible. Any one who attentively reads Mr. Taylor’s Letter cannot fail to perceive that the practice represented by Dr. Carpenter is rooted in illusion and imposture. Silence under the circumstances may therefore pass for discretion: silence on Dr. Carpenter’s part possesses a significance it would be difficult to misinterpret. Indeed, none know better than those responsible for vaccination as a medical interest, that the less it is brought under discussion the more likely it is to endure. _Quieta non movere_ is their motto; and officious champions like Dr. Carpenter have little thanks for their restlessness.

Correspondence in newspapers is a well-recognised means for the diffusion of new ideas, and in the use of this means the opponents of vaccination have acquired no little distinction. There is an increasing number throughout the country who not only know their own case, but the case of their adversaries better than do their adversaries themselves; and if an editor has grace enough to maintain a fair field and show no favour, the issue is invariably satisfactory. Two able correspondents, who have gone hence, are especially worthy of mention--Andrew Leighton and William Gibson Ward. Mr. Leighton was a Liverpool merchant, who, having become interested in the vaccination question, made its discussion the occupation of his leisure. With a clear and logical mind, patient, sagacious, and tolerant, prejudice itself could scarcely withstand his sweet reasonableness. Almost to the day of his death, 14th January, 1877, he was engaged in newspaper controversy, each letter bearing witness to his admirable temper and persuasive power.[304] Mr. Ward of Perriston Towers was a man of wide reading and perfervid character, who wrote and talked after the manner of Cobbett, whom in many respects he resembled. Having discovered the truth as concerned vaccination, he applied himself vigorously and successfully to its diffusion. He sustained his prosecution as a parent with the joy of one who delights in battle; and, indeed, as it was said, a periodical prosecution would have suited him exactly, providing him with occasion for a rousing speech in court and a discussion with the bench, to be duly reported in the Herefordshire newspapers. Mr. Ward died 18th October, 1882. Latterly he had access to _The Times_, and followed up a series of letters on subjects he had made his own with one on which he argued, that smallpox was neither an unmixed evil, nor a cause of extra mortality.[305]

To enter into a closer enumeration of those engaged in the movement against vaccination would be invidious and bound to imperfection. Still it would be grateful to refer to the various services of veterans like Sir Jervoise Clarke Jervoise, Mr. Thomas Baker, Dr. Edward Haughton, Mr. T. B. Brett of St. Leonards, Mr. Edmund Proctor of Newcastle, Mr. John Lucas of Gateshead, Mr. R. A. Milner of Keighley, Mr. W. F. Fox of Dewsbury, Dr. E. J. Crow of Ripon, Mr. Francis Davis, jun., of Enniscorthy, Mr. Wm. Thurlow of Sudbury, Mr. Wm. Adair of Maryport, Mr. Charles Gillett of Banbury, Dr. T. L. Nichols, Mr. James Burns, and Mr. Amos Booth of Leicester. These and others have borne the odium of despised truth, and live to see it steadily acquiring favour and force, whilst the delusion to which it is opposed is entering the region of scepticism preparatory to dispersion and contempt.

All means are good against evil, but deeds are more than words; and talk against vaccination counts far less than resistance to its infliction. The more who are withheld from the rite, the more live to prove its inutility; and the more the law designed to enforce is set at defiance, the surer and sooner will be its overthrow. Nevertheless, let us not forget what this warfare costs, nor how we are indebted to the men and women, brave, tender, and true, by whom it is endured. As a rule, the rich are exempt: the contest is with the poor. As Mrs. Jacob Bright says--

I object to Compulsory Vaccination because it is an outrageous
piece of class legislation. No one in easy circumstances, no one
possessing the luxury of a family doctor, need have his child
vaccinated. He has only to tell his family doctor that he objects
to Vaccination, and the matter is at an end. Did ever any one
hear of a family doctor who threatened to prosecute the head of
a family for nonconformity in this respect? I think not. But
the family doctor of the poor is the parish doctor. He is quite
independent of his patient, and being paid by other people to
vaccinate them, he not only vaccinates them in many cases against
their will, but he does it _when_ he likes, and with _what_ virus
he likes, irrespective of the feelings or opinions they may
entertain.

I was riding some time ago in Sherwood Forest, and stopped to
ask for a glass of water at a cottage, where a poor woman was
standing with her fat little baby in her arms. I said, “You’ve
got a pretty boy there. Has he been vaccinated?” The mother’s
face, which was glowing with pride at praise of her boy, suddenly
fell, and she said, “No, madam, he hasn’t, but he’ll have to be.
We’ve lost one through it,” she added, with tears in her eyes.
She is one of a great number of poor people who, rightly or
wrongly, believe that Vaccination is dangerous, and yet are not
able to resist the pressure put upon them to vaccinate; they are
too poor, and in most cases have not the spirit to resist.

I say that it is disgraceful to fine and imprison people for
forming an independent opinion on a medical question; and it is
particularly disgraceful that my poor neighbour should be thus
persecuted when I am free, absolutely free, to please myself
whether my children shall be vaccinated. It is not possible that
this thing can continue.[306]

The contest, be it repeated, is with the poor. “There is no getting over the fact,” says Dr. John Scott of Manchester, “that vaccination is hated among the working class, in Lancashire, at least.” Vaccination is hated, and rightly hated, and the law is set to overcome that hatred. Multitudes submit because they either know not how, or dread to do otherwise; but an honourable and increasing number prefer the better part--holding by what they recognise for right, resolved to obey God rather than man. It has been said, “The days of martyrdom, like those of miracles, have ceased”; but have they? The record of humble English folk, who, during the past thirty years, have withstood the infamous Vaccination Acts, bears witness to the contrary. Martyrdom and heroism are rarely recognised by those who occasion or dislike their manifestation: it is sympathy that opens the eyes to their appearance. Unknown or despised, these medical nonconformists have stood true to their faith in the order of nature against doctor-craft, and have counted nothing dear to them if so be they could preserve their children and conscience from outrage. They have been prosecuted with all the malice and pertinacity of petty authority--of Justice Shallow and Bumble; have been insulted from the judgment seat; have been fined to the uttermost farthing and loaded with uttermost costs, and this repeatedly; have had their goods and furniture distrained, and their homes broken up; have been sent to jail with hard labour, and subjected to every indignity and cruelty of the prison-house; have been hunted from parish to parish, and in despair driven to exile. And these have been Englishmen, the law English, and the time our own! The Master of the Rolls recently observed, “What is contrary to the feelings of every honest man cannot be the law of England--or, if it be, the sooner it ceases to be law the better.” It would be unfair to charge the injustice of the Vaccination Acts to the English people. To most of them their character and operation are unknown. The chief sufferers are hidden under the hatches of poverty, and are unable to make the land resound with their wrongs. Those, too, who essay to speak for them are confronted with that obdurate dulness with which the early Free-Traders had to contend when restriction was thought to be as good for commerce as cowpox is thought to be good for health in stopping smallpox. Mr. Bright, in praising the speeches of Mr. Villiers at Birmingham, 29th January, 1884, remarked--

I mention their publication to revive the strange and painful
fact that during the years when those speeches--so convincing,
so absolutely unanswerable, were spoken in the House of Commons,
they were addressed, as it were, to men morally stone deaf.
The arguments were not answered, the facts adduced were not
disproved, the appalling suffering of the people was not denied.

A similar deafness to the oppression of compulsory vaccination prevails, though there are signs of awakening. Still it is not for those who suffer to wait on politicians. The words are trite, but true as trite--

“Know ye not,
Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow?”

Many are discovering that in union is strength. Combinations for mutual protection and insurance against penalties are multiplying. Resist and Organise is their watchword: organise, study the law, find out its weak places, make the most of them, harass its administrators, vote only for guardians who are opposed to compulsion; and, in short, do whatever is possible to frustrate the pernicious legislation.

Sometimes it is asked, “Why not obey the law and agitate for its repeal?” but the suggestion is designed for stultification. Suppose the Society of Friends had consented to take oaths until the law was adjusted to their consciences, would they not have been swearing to this day? Suppose some dissenters had not refused to pay church rates, when would church rates have been abolished? Suppose the Irish had submitted to English rule until convinced by reason of the wickedness and folly of their domination, how long would they have had to wait for the redress of their wrongs? Such questions might be run over pages, but to what purpose? All know (unless submerged in cant) that those who would have must take; and that no man’s rights can be entrusted to another’s good-will, be the trustee ever so just. Vaccination is a medical monopoly established, endowed, and enforced--a tyranny to be overthrown. Those who profit by it will never consent to its surrender, whatever the evidence of its inutility and mischief: it would be against experience to expect otherwise: and they will never be so valiant in defence of their monopoly, and so profuse in the assertion of its overwhelming advantages, as when its dissolution is imminent. The wise understand these things. There is, therefore, but one way in which to get rid of the incubus, and that way is outright resistance. Already such resistance has proved successful in several parts of the country. The law has been reduced to abeyance, and similar resistance will be rewarded with similar results. Moreover, further legislation in favour of vaccination has been checked. Parliament will pass no more Vaccination Acts. The plague thus far is stayed: the worst possible has been seen: the business is to clear away what remains.

* * * * *

It is sometimes said that vaccination is unnatural, and the saying is disregarded as unscientific or absurd. But is it unscientific? and is it absurd? Men deserve an order in Nature, and when they perceive that any procedure is at variance with that order, they instinctively condemn it as unnatural, though possibly they may be unable to give a philosophic account of their aversion.

We unite in the assertion that vaccination is unnatural, and when we are asked, Why? we answer, Because it is an operation which violates the order maintained in the formation of the blood. If we follow food into the stomach and attend to the processes of digestion, rejection, and assimilation--the infinite care, in short, with which blood is made, we shall start back with dislike, and even horror, from a practice which sets at naught all this care; which attacks the blood directly, and attacks it to poison it. Hence it is that vaccination is stigmatised as unnatural, being a process which not only reverses the course of Nature in blood-making, but doubly unnatural, as violating that course and poisoning its product.

To re-affirm and illustrate our meaning, we take the following piece of physiological poetry, poetic yet scientifically accurate, from Dr. Garth Wilkinson--

In the human body, whatever enters the blood, be it even the
most bland food, the juice of the grape or the pomegranate, or
the fine flour of wheat, be it oil, wine, or fig, is broken up
first, and then led inwards through long avenues of introduction.
The most innocent food goes in most easily and first. The police
and surveillance for the rest are exceeding great and many. The
senses electively appetise the fine food; it has to pass through
their peremptory doors of liking and disliking; instructed doors
of memory, association, imagination, reason, wisdom, religion,
in adults. It is then attacked by digestive salivas, tests,
examinations, and severe juices, and questioned to the uttermost
in that degree, which corresponds to the former. It is strained
through organ after organ; each a tribunal of more than social
exactitude. It is absorbed by the finest systems of choice in
pore and vessel, organic judgment sitting in every corner, and
presiding over each inner doorway. It is submitted to glandular
and lung purifications, and their furnaces of trials and
eliminations. At last it is weighed in the balances, and minted
by supreme nerve wisdoms; and only after all these processes is
it admitted into the golden blood. This of the best food, such
as good and wise men eat. The worst food is made the best of by
a constant passage through bodily mercies and mitigations--a
no less sedulous though a penal process. This is physiology,
and divine-human decency, and like a man’s life. Vaccination
traverses and tramples upon all these safeguards and wisdoms;
it goes direct to the blood, or, still worse, to the lymph, and
not with food; it puts poison, introduced by puncture, and that
has no test applicable to it, and can have no character given
to it but that it is fivefold animal and human poison, at a
blow into the very centre, thus otherwise guarded by nature in
the providence of God. This is blood assassination, and like a
murderer’s life.[307]

Finally, vaccination is an attempt to swindle Nature. The vaccinator says, “Come, my little dear, come and let me give you a disease wherewith I shall so hoax Nature that henceforth you may live in what stench you please, and smallpox shall not catch you.” But can Nature be swindled? can Nature be hoaxed? Mr. Lowell, in praising the genius of Cervantes, says, “There is a moral in _Don Quixote_, and a very profound one it is--that whoever quarrels with Nature, whether wittingly or unwittingly, is certain to get the worst of it.” There is sometimes an apparent triumph over Nature. We do wrong, and fancy we may evade the penalty by some cunning contrivance, but ere long we perceive with dismay that the consequences were only concealed or staved off, and that we have to answer to the uttermost farthing. Vaccination is a dodge kindred with incantations and similar performances whereby it is hoped to circumvent the order of the Highest, and compel his favour apart from obedience to his will. By artifice it is attempted to obviate a consequence of ill-living, whilst persisting in ill-living; but if it were possible to escape smallpox by such means, we should have equal punishment in some other mode. No: smallpox with its alternatives and equivalents can only be avoided through compliance with the old-fashioned prescription, “Wash you, make you clean; cease to do evil, learn to do well.” The lesson is hard to learn, and harder to practise; but there is no evading it if we would be healthy and happy. Wherefore all tricks like vaccination are bound to nullity and disaster. As Hosea Biglow says--

“You hev gut to git up airly
Ef you want to take in God.”

* * * * *

WILLIAM A. GUY, F.R.C.P., F.R.S.

Is Vaccination a preventive of Smallpox? To this question there
is, there can be, no answer except such as is couched in the
language of figures.--_Journal of the Statistical Society_, 1882,
vol. xlv. p. 414.

G. F. KOLB,

_Member of the Royal Statistical Commission of Bavaria._

From childhood I had been trained to look upon Cowpox as an
absolute protective from Smallpox. I believed in Vaccination
more strongly than in any ecclesiastical dogma. Numerous and
acknowledged failures did not shake my faith. I attributed them
either to the carelessness of the operator or the badness of the
lymph.

In course of time the question of Compulsory Vaccination came
before the Reichstag, when a medical friend supplied me with a
mass of statistics in favour of Vaccination, in his opinion,
conclusive and unanswerable. This awoke the statistician
within me. On inspection, I found the figures delusive; and
closer examination left no shadow of doubt in my mind that the
statistical array of proof represented a complete failure.

My investigations were continued, and my judgment was confirmed.
For instance, Cowpox was introduced to Bavaria in 1807, and for
a long time none, except the newly-born, escaped Vaccination;
nevertheless in the epidemic of 1871, of 30,472 cases of
Smallpox, no less than 29,429 were vaccinated, as is shown in the
documents of the State.--_From Letter to_ MR. WILLIAM TEBB, _22nd
January, 1882_.

FOOTNOTES:

[293] _The Statistics of the Medical Officers to the Leeds Smallpox Hospital Exposed and Refuted in a Letter to the Leeds Board of Guardians._ By John Pickering. Leeds, 1876.

[294] Mr. Constable’s publications have been as follows--

_Medical Evidence in the Case of Dale_ v. _Constable_. York, 1872.
Pp. 30.
_Doctors, Vaccination, and Utilitarianism._ York, 1873. Pp. 239.
_Our Medicine Men: a Few Hints._ Hull, 1876. Pp. 689.
_Fashions of the Day in Medicine and Science._ Hull, 1879. Pp. 300.

[295] _Vaccination Tracts with Preface and Supplement._ London, 1879. Pp. 348.

[296] _Can Disease protect Health? being a Reply to Mr. Ernest Hart’s pamphlet, entitled The Truth about Vaccination._ By Enoch Robinson, M.R.C.S. London, 1880. Pp. 38.

[297] _A Review of the Norwich Vaccination Inquiry._ London, 1883. _Sir Lyon Playfair’s Logic._ London, 1883. _Specificity and Evolution in Disease._ By W. J. Collins, M.D., B.S., B.Sc. (Lond.) London, 1884.

[298] The first publication of Mr. Gibbs, _The Evils of Vaccination_, is dated 1856: the latest is a reply to the question, “Is Vaccination Scientific?” in _The Journal of Science_, March, 1884.

[299] An article, “Compulsory Vaccination,” in evidence of Mr. Dudgeon’s quality, will be found in _The Westminster Review_, No. CXXX., April, 1884.

[300] _Vaccination: Is it Worthy of National Support? A Public Discussion in South Place Chapel, Finsbury, on 28th May, 1878_, under the Presidency of Sir Thomas Chambers, M.P., Recorder of the City of London. London, 1878.

Mr. Wheeler has published the following pamphlets--

_Vaccination in the Light of History._ London, 1878.

_Vaccination--Opposed to Science and a Disgrace to English Law._
London, 1879.

_Vaccination--1883._ London, 1884.

[301] _Government Prosecutions for Medical Heresy; a Verbatim Report of the case Regina_ v. _Tebb_. _Dedicated to the Board of St. Pancras Guardians. With an Introduction and Appendix of Illustrative Matter._ London, 1879.

[302] Mr. Tebb’s publications have been many, and his last is especially noteworthy--_Compulsory Vaccination in England: with Incidental References to Foreign States_. London, 1884. Pp. 64.

[303] _Vaccination. A Letter to Dr. W. B. Carpenter, C.B._ By P. A. Taylor, M.P. London, 1881.

[304] Mr. Leighton published nothing outside the newspapers except a letter addressed to William Chambers of Edinburgh, entitled, _The People of Dewsbury and Vaccination_. London, 1876.

[305] “A New View of Smallpox.”--_The Times_, 25th December, 1879.

[306] Letter from Ursula M. Bright to Annual Meeting of the London Society for the Abolition of Compulsory Vaccination, held in Shoreditch Town Hall, 13th May, 1884.

[307] _On Human Science, Good and Evil, and its Works; and on Divine Revelation and its Works and Sciences._ London, 1876.

INDEX.

Abbott, Mr., speaker, House of Commons, 219.

Abercrombie, Sir Ralph, 396.

Aberdeen degrees, 330.

Aberdeenshire, Maitland at home, 34.

Acksell, Dr., 408.

Adair, William, 590.

Adams, Dr., Waltham, uses smallpox cowpox, 76.

Adams, Dr., pearly pox for variolation, 120;
on cowpox before Jenner, 138.

Adams, American president, 379.

Adderley, Sir Charles, 553.

Addington, Mr., 186, 195.

Addington, John, surgeon, 189, 218.

Addison, W. J., evidence House of Commons’ committee, 1871, 556.

Alexander, Emperor of Russia, cautioned by Jenner against Walker, 329;
disappoints Jenner, 362;
enforces vaccination, 406.

Allen _v._ Worthy, 551.

Alsop, Mr., surgeon, Calne, 130.

Amelia, Princess, variolated, 18, 22.

Anderson, Mr., Madras, fraud, 387.

Anderson, Dr., Leith, 151.

Angerstein, Mr., 230.

Antimony, tartarated, substitute for cowpox, 121, 348.

Anti-Vaccination Congresses--Paris 1880, Cologne 1881, Berne 1883, 581.

_Anti-Vaccinator_, Henry Pitman’s, 544;
John Pickering’s, 574.

Anti-Vaccinators, characterised by Robert Lowe, 528;
by Simon, 558-59;
by Marson, 563;
by Seaton, 569;
by British Medical Association, 580;
by J. G. Talbot, M. P., and by Dr. Barrow, 581.

Aspinwall, Dr., variolator, Boston, 376, 377.

Atheism imputed to variolators, 42.

Austria, death-rates compared with those of England, 506.

Avelin, Professor, vaccination in Prussia, 405.

Ayrton, A. S., vaccinators should be subject to penalties, 532.

Badcock, Mr., Brighton, produces and uses smallpox cowpox, 75, 272,
472, 512, 514.

Bagehot, Walter, 8.

Baillie, Dr., witness for Jenner, 190.

Baker, Sir George, practice of the Suttons, 47.

Baker, John, one of Jenner’s victims, 117, 154.

Baker, Thomas, 509, 590;
evidence House of Commons’ committee 1871, 555.

Bakewell, Dr. R. H., evidence House of Commons’ committee 1871,
559-560.

Ballard, Dr., prize Essay on Vaccination, 547, 548.

Balmis, Dr. F. X., expedition as trader and vaccinator, 401.

Banks, Mr., Jenner’s claims, 195, 233.

Banks, Sir Joseph, 146, 147, 226.

Baptism conjoined with vaccination, 276.

Barbados, variolation, 38.

Barge, Mary and John, 104, 119.

Baron’s _Life of Jenner_, 349-363, 586.

Baron, Dr. John, romance as to Jenner’s early years, 94;
extra-ordinary narrative, 95;
gush over George IV., 220;
Jenner _v._ Walker, 226;
Jenner’s shyness, 230;
letter from Jenner on Grosvenor case, 319;
first meeting with Jenner and attitude toward him, 349, 352;
appalled by no inconsistency, 354;
nor admitted change of mind in Jenner, 355-356;
rant over Balmis expedition, 402;
Jenner’s inability to count, 416;
Dr. Watt’s mischievousness, 452.
Uses and sends Jenner equine virus, 269;
apology for confounding horsegrease with horsepox, 270.

Barrow, Dr., “a disgrace to humanity,” 581.

Barrow, Mr., 538.

Barttelot, Colonel, 537.

Bath Vaccine Pock Institution, 163.

Bathurst, Lord, servant variolated and died, 34.

Batts of Temple variolated, 19.

Bavaria, results of vaccination, 596.

Beale, Dr. Lionel, much vaccinated, 302.

Beaufort, Duke of, 176.

Beddoes, Dr., cowpox, 138;
smallpox after cowpox, 165.

Bedford, Duke of, 219, 220.

Bengal subscription to Jenner, 390.

Berkeley, Jenner’s birthplace and home, 92;
inhabitants variolated, 99.

Berkeley, Admiral, 186, 194.

Berkeley, Earl of, 176, 191.

Berlin Royal Vaccine Institution, and Jennerian feast, 405.

Berne Anti-Vaccination Congress, 1883, 581.

Birch, John, variolation harmless, 66;
treatment of smallpox a chief cause of fatalities, 85;
summoned on Jenner’s case, 187;
character of his opposition to vaccination, 274;
scorn for means used to extend craze, 276;
nature of evidence submitted to House of Commons, 276;
desire to know what cowpox was, 277;
absurdity of spurious cowpox, 277;
what had Jenner discovered? 278;
assertion that cowpox was harmless and would never prove fatal, 279;
futility of variolous test, 279;
smallpox following vaccination, 280;
Jenner pestered with failures, 280;
fine promises belied, 281;
death and epitaph, 281, 282;
Jenner’s treatment of Birch, 283;
mention in _Edinburgh Review_, 290.

Birch, Penelope, reprints brother’s papers, 281,
and erects his monument, 282.

Blandford fire and smallpox, 85.

Blane, Sir Gilbert, 83, 397;
witness for Jenner, 187;
estimate of smallpox for United Kingdom, 208, 209.

Bleeding, 519, 584.

Blistering, 519.

Blood-making, process described, 594-595.

Bombay, vaccination introduced, 385, 388;
subscription to Jenner, 390.

Bompas, flaming fire-brand, 77.

Booth, Amos, 590.

Boringdon, Lord, bill to suppress variolation, 73, 353.

Boston, variolation first practised, 2-4, 7, 377;
completely variolated, 57;
method of practice, 58, 373;
smallpox in 18th century, 371-373.

Bouley, Prof., experiments with horsepox, 273.

Bourne, Sturges, denounces variolation, 72, 246.

Boy, cowpox ox-faced, 297.

Boylston, Dr. Zabdiel, variolation in New England, 2, 5-7, 56, 371.

Bowman, Mr., Newcastle, 550.

Bradley, Dr., Jenner’s conjectural income, 188.

Brady, Mr., liberal pay for vaccination, 536.

Bragge, Mr., surgeon, attempts use of cowpox, 138.

Brahmins hold cowpox impure, 387.

Bread, Beef and Beer, 88, 316.

Bremer, Dr., vaccinations in Berlin, 406.

Brett, T. B., St. Leonards, 590.

Bridgewater, Duke of, son variolated and killed, 34.

Bright, Jacob, 553;
cites Gregory against Marson on marks, 561.

Bright, John, deafness of House of Commons, 592.

Bright, Ursula M., forcible vaccination of poor, 590.

_British Medical Journal_, refusal of advertisements, 582.

British Medical Association on anti-vaccinators, 579-580.

Brodie, Sir Benjamin, medical practice, 92.

Brotherton, Joseph, 501.

Brown, Thomas, Musselburgh, criticism of vaccination, 285;
sees vaccinated with smallpox, 286;
fallacy of variolous test, 287;
attempted refutation by Edinburgh vaccinators, 287;
re-affirmed position in 1842, 288;
Jenner’s malice toward, 351;
Moore’s insolence, 457;
confession that Brown was in the right, 458;
cited by Hamernik against re-vaccination, 520.

Browne, Hawkins, 246.

Bruce, H. A., spokesman for vaccination ring, 530-531;
untruthful statement, 537-538.

Bryce’s Test, 353.

Buchan, Dr. William, _Domestic Medicine_, 53;
recommends variolation, 54;
appeal to clergy, 54;
mortality from smallpox and variolation, 66;
maltreatment of smallpox, 85;
prevalence and cause of scurvy, 87-88;
denounces tea, 90.

Bullpox, 144, 272, 374.

Burdett, Sir Francis, scepticism as to vaccination, 253.

Burnet, Mr., prosecuted for variolation, 463.

Burns, James, 590.

Burrows, Dr., London bills of mortality, 1818, 77.

Burrows, Sir J. Cordy, production of smallpox cowpox, 76.