Vaccination a Medical Fallacy. 
BY 
ALEXANDER WILDER, M. D. 
“ Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.”—Shakspere’s Hamlet. 
“ I have clearly perceived the progressive, dangerous influence of Vaccin- 
ation in France, England and Germany. 
“ Alexander Von Humboldt Letter to Mr. Gibbs, 
President of the Anti-Vaccine League, London.’'’ 
“ It is certain that Scrofolous and Tubercular diseases have increased since 
the introduction of cow-pox, and that the vaccine favors particularly the 
prevalence of various forms of scrofula.”—Copland : Medical Dictionary. 
To take issue with a popular idea requires moral courage 
transcending any common audacity. Only the conviction 
of being right enables one to speak when thus confronted. 
In the medical profession especially, innovation upon ac- 
cepted methods is bitterly resented. New remedies, new 
inodes of treating the sick, and new ideas of pathology, are 
alike unwelcome. They disturb the sleep of ages, and show 2 
men faulty who had been regarded as well nigh infallible. 
Such offences are rarely condoned. The person committing 
them receives generally proscription and abuse, but rarely 
a candid hearing. 
With the present century vaccination has become the 
hobby, rather than the conviction of medical men. It is ac- 
cepted, with almost an unreasoning deference to the opinions 
of others ; indifference to any intelligent view of the subject, 
and a disposition to follow in the groove established by pre- 
cedent, without a thought whether that precedent is right or 
wrong, rational or fallacious. As in the case of other notions 
which have not commended themselves to popular accept- 
ance, its advocates do not rest content with submitting the 
matter to rational enquiry, but seek to procure compulsory 
obedience by law and penalty. This is but a form of vio- 
lence ; and the resort to it is equivalent, therefore, to an ac- 
knowledgment on the part of these men, that they are actu- 
ally in the wrong. Truth can afford to wait the ages ; but 
error would expire on the way. 
Vaccination is physiologically and morally wrong, and its 
advocates are interiorly conscious of it; or else they would 
trust to argument and conviction. 
Virchow, speaking on this subject, has very justly remark- 
ed : 
“ When the public sees a doctrine, which has been exhibit- 
ed to them as certain, established, and claiming universal 
acceptance, proved to be faulty in its very foundation, or 
discovered to be wilful and despotic in its essential and chief 
tendencies, many lose faith in science,” 
The first argument against the dissenter is always brow- 
beating ; the second, ribaldry ; the third, proscription. The 
man or the cause that can outlive these three, is perennial, 
and is certain ultimately to win. 
The}7’ who bow obsequiously to opinion, however dogmati- 3 
cally or arbitrarily enforced, are tlie enemies of mankind. 
They almost justify oppression by their willingness to accept 
its yoke. 
The impulse of the period, we regret to say, has been to 
devolve all upon the government, and curtail the freedom of 
the individual, and to subject the private to the public con- 
science, as is done in the religious establishment of the Old 
World. 
We have never so learned our lesson. Our veneration for 
science and truth is deep and broad ; but no dogma, in what- 
ever department of thought, has even the commonest title 
to our respect if it cannot show some other title except the 
antiquity which invests it with mystery, or the imposing- 
names which give it currency. 
Vaccination, however popular a delusion it may be, has 
fortunately no antiquity to consecrate it for our veneration. 
It came to the public knowledge through sources which en- 
title it to little consideration. It never had a scientific basis 
origin or character. Nor is there any specific principle in 
vaccine virus, of any kind, however produced, to arrest or 
prevent small-pox, or any other disease. Jenner, who first 
introduced vaccination, was not in any essential respect, a 
physician or scientist. He was for some time a pupil of 
Hunter; but never studied medicine to any considerable 
extent. Finding the degree of Doctor of Medicine to have 
some importance in the popular mind, he purchased one 
from the University of Si, Andrew’s in Scotland, as others 
purchase degrees in this country and elsewhere, who never 
learned medicine, or had any actual relish or even capacity 
for the study. Even this, however, might be passed over, if 
the “discovery” possessed merit and conferred benefit on 
others. We can afford to learn from those who are not re- 
cognized in the scientific world, whatever they know that is 
of value. The gold, without a stamp, is precious ; but baser 
substances need to be made legal tender by statue, or nobody 
would accept them. Upon this principal, the supporters of 
vaccination and other things denominated regular, are afraid 4 
to trust themselves with the public, without a penal law, of 
at least a public opinion, credited by Mrs. Grundy and her 
coterie, to keep them from sinking out of good society. 
SMALL POX OR VARIOLA. 
The distemper known as small-pox, is supposed to have 
been introduced into Europe by the Moors and Saracens, 
about a thousand years ago. It is a common disease in Asia 
where it seems to be of an unknown antiquity. It was regu- 
lar in its recurrence as an epidemic in Europe, as far back as 
it is known. But in no century had it ever been known to 
be more deadly than in the seventeenth, after the thirty 
years’ war. Among the aboriginal, inhabitants of the Ameri- 
can continent, it was entirely unknown, till it was carried 
thither by white men ; since which time it has been a pow- 
erful auxiliary to the other vices in extirpating the natives. 
It prevails as an epidemic in the different countries, coming 
and going with a regularity similar to that of other pests. 
In its characteristics, [small-pox belongs in the category 
with erysipelas, measles, scarlatina, diphtheria and varicella. 
The predisposing causes are similar; the form of the out- 
break is probably occasioned by circumstances of atmos- 
pheric character. It may be treated like the others, with 
little regard to its specific character. It is epidemic at dif- 
ferent periods of time ; and when this is the case it seems 
to be a little amenable to ordinary prophylactic agencies. 
When the Asiatic cholera has prevailed in a community, 
small-pox is very likely to follow. This favors the conjec- 
ture as a like materies morhi in botli complaints. 
During the Middle Ages the Black Death, and small-pox 
and other pestilences overran Europe, almost at stated 
periods. Whole districts were depopulated; and, in fact* 
mankind seemed to degenerate there as in no other known 
region of the globe. In every country population was sparse, 
and the average duration of life less than twenty years. 5 
So prostrate was the human intellect at these visitations, 
that when syphilis passed over the different countries in the 
fifteenth century, it was also regarded as an epidemic. It 
certainly prevailed very generally in all walks of life, sparing 
neither Francis I. nor Hodge the peasant. 
VACCINATION AND SMALL-POX. 
The history of vaccination, perhaps, affords some aid in ex 
burning the sources of variola. Jenner, it is well known, 
first promulgated the idea that persons having contracted 
the vaccine disease by infection with virus from cows, enjoy- 
ed permanent immunity from small-pox. As if to disconcert 
his theories, several vaccinated patients took variola, and he 
was compelled to invent a new hypothesis. He declared that 
the pustules of cow-pox, the disease originating with kine, 
was in no respect a preventive of small-pox. This, by the 
way, is the particular virus which is just now most popular 
with advocates of vaccination. But, declared Jenner, the 
pus from the heels of a horse diseased with “ grease,” is 
a prophylactic, and indeed, the sole one. Horse-pox, then 
and not cow-pox, was the disease which it was necessary to 
disseminate, to counteract small-pox. 
We have already mentioned that the latter distemper is 
supposed to have been introduced into Europe by the Moors 
and Arabians. We may now perceive that there is a pecu- 
liar significance in this fact. Both these peoples were very 
folid of horses, associating with them almost as freely as 
with the members of their families. It is a suggestion 
worth studying whether the distemper may not have been 
communicated to them from their equine favorites. We 
know that glanders and some other forms of consumption 
may be thus transmitted. The vaccine pest, if it has any re- 
lation whatever to variolar disease, owes it to such kinship. 
The Hindus and Chinese endeavored to avert the great 
mortality of epidemic small-pox, by the introduction of the 
practice of inoculation. The Turks learned it from them, 
and it was carried into Europe. Lady Mary Wortley Mon- 6 
tagne introduced it into England. Whatever the benefits 
were, need not be asked ; but it certainly kept small-pox 
active in countries add districts, where otherwise it would 
not have prevailed. Indeed, one great reason why there are 
fewer epidemics and endemics of the malady in the nineteenth 
than in the eighteenth century, doubtless is from the dis- 
continuing of small-pox inoculation. 
THE VACCINATION MANIA. 
On the 14th of May, 1796, Jenner began his experiments 
in vaccination, substituting cow-pox lymph for small pox 
lymph. Two years afterward he promulgated his discovery. 
Since that time vaccination has been the only preventive 
employed. It is known not to be unfailing, as small-pox 
has repeatedly appeared with great severity ; but it is de- 
clared to be a means by which the person is rendered less 
liable to the distemper. Very able medical men have at all 
times opposed the practice ; but as they proposed no other 
preventive, and did not explain the character of either 
variola or vaccinia, their opposition failed to receive atten- 
tion. It has been suggested that their condemnation was too 
sweeping ; as vaccination did exert a little prophylactic in- 
fluence, but by no means to that degree which its advocates 
asserted. 
Meanwhile, in the principal countries of Europe, and to 
some extent in American cities, vaccination is not only 
generally accepted, but it is made compulsory by penal law. 
This is bad statesmanship and worse morality ; but neverthe- 
less men who profess to be scientific, recommend it; legis- 
lators pretending a regard for the public welfare and to be 
the defenders of popular freedom, frame it into law ; and 
others who are often denominated “liberal,” approve of the 
enforcement. This practice is Vaccination. 
Children going to school are vaccinated perforce ; and now, 
as if there must be no protection for the dissenting and 
skeptical, their attendance, and in sequence, their vaccina- 
tion are made compulsorj^. 
Such is the outcome of our science ; and legislation, which 
is but the aggregating of brute force, has put on the coping. 7 
Vaccination is the “legal tender” currency of our modern 
practice ; not its gold. 
Venesection was an old-time mania of doctors, and every 
patient almost was bled on sight. A man who would not 
bleed or dose with mercury, no matter how scholarly and 
accomplished, was certain to be refused rf he asked for a 
physician’s diploma; and yet was made liable to fine and 
imprisonment if he treated a sick man without one. We 
have the statement of the late William Cobbett, undenied, 
that George Washington was bled beyond power of recupe- 
ration, and blistered till the poor old man besought his 
medical attendant to cease the barbarous torturing, and let 
him die in peace. In 1830, a physician who would not bleed 
and deplete was accounted eccentric, irregular, and empiri- 
cal ; now only the Bourbons do it. When they die these 
methods of treating the sick will be enumerated by some 
future Wendell Phillips, among the “Lost Arts.” 
So completely has vaccination become a hobby of this 
period, that ribaldry and abuse are the chief arguments 
employed to sustain it against criticism or question. The 
advocates show that it is at best only an expedient, and has 
no known foundation in truth or philosophy. It has no 
real merit or principle. It is defenseless against attack from 
scientific enquiry. I now add the prediction that the princi- 
pal attempt, if any is made, to answer this will be an evasion 
of the argument and an application of the lawyer’s advice : 
“ There is no case ; abuse the plaintiff’s attorney.” 
VACCINATION IS NOT PROPHYLACTIC AGAINST SMALL-POX. 
There is nothing in the nature or elements of vaccine pus- 
tule or of the ferment of the body of the patient which vac- 
cination creates, to counteract small-pox tendencies, or to 
eradicate them. It is simply the outcome of a filthy disease. 
The idea of employing such an agency to purify the consti- 
tution from any poison is repugnant to the plainest prin- 
ciples of common sense. The act of vaccination is simply the 
contaminating of a patient’s body with a blood-poison. Its 
most fitting eulogy is that found in the New Testament: 
Satan casting out Satan. The conclusion is inevitable in each 
case, it loill not he done. 8 
It has never been my fortune yet to meet a person whom I 
had any good reason to believe, had obtained exemption from 
small-pox in this manner. I have encountered numbers who 
had the disorder; but whenever I made enquiry, I always 
learned that they had been vaccinated. It is customary with 
physicians to denominate such cases varioloid, and to declare 
that they were milder, because the patient’s constitution 
had been influenced by the vaccine disease. But the infec- 
tion of the complaint is as sure to disseminate small-pox, as 
in the case of unvaccinated patients ; and as for the severity, 
I have never been able to And good cause for giving credence 
to the representation. Varioloid is also a fallacy, not worth 
spending a sensible man’s time to talk about. Dr. Jen- 
ner’s proposition that a person once inoculated with the cow- 
pox virus can never afterward take the small-pox has been 
abundantly shown by experience, to be untrue. 
The evidence of the most learned of our medical authors 
is in point. “I do not believe,” says Sir Janies Y. Simpson, 
“ that either vaccination or drugs can give absolute security 
to any population against the inroads of small-pox. When 
every care has been taken, the vaccinated person has been 
known to be attacked by small-pox. In an epidemic of the 
disease such cases are extremely common. 
Professor Ennemoser writes about vaccination as follows : 
‘‘A more infernal mystification the world has never experi- 
enced since its existence ; the belief in witches can only 
be compared with it. It is certainly not to be comprehend- 
ed how a poison in the organism, can be extinguished by 
a similar poison.” 
Professor Bock of Leipzic, says : “I have in a forty years’ 
practice seen far more evil than good from vaccination, and 
therefore vaccinated my own children only in their third 
and fourth year, when they were hearty and strong. But I 
would' never have vaccinated, them lout for an indirect com- 
pulsory vaccination. ’ ’ 
Professor Kranichfield, of Berlin, gives his conclusions 
most emphatically of all: “I, too,” says he, “have vaccinated, 
my fourteen children at a time when 1 did not know how in- 9 
furious it teas. To-day I would resist the authorities 
AND THE POLICE LAW.” 
Marc D’Espine shows in the Echo Medical for July, 1859, 
that of vaccinated jJeople, 65 per cent., and of the non-vac- 
cinated, only 23 percent, were attacked by the most malig- 
nant form of small-pox. When, from want of physical 
strength, the eruption did not break out, there died of one 
hundred vaccinated, 56; while, according to Perrin, of such 
as had not been vaccinated, only 8 per cent, died at the 
Hotel Dieu. 
During the year 1863, 1864, 1865, small-pox prevailed to 
an enormous extent, not only in England, but also in Ger- 
many, Hungary, France and Sweden, notwithstanding the 
general compulsory vaccination. In upper Bavaria, where 
the compulsory law is strictly executed, there were, at the 
time, 1346 attacked by malignant small-pox, 1,256 of those 
vaccinated and 90 not vaccinated ; so that vaccination has 
not even made the disease milder. 
A boast has sometimes been made that small-pox had once 
been eradicated in Sweden ; only fourteen dying from it in a 
certain year. A closer enquiry showed however, that only 
a few thousand of the population had been vaccinated at 
that very time. 
TESTIMONY OF VACCINATORS 
The evidence of the most observing among the vaccinating 
officers employed in England, is equally in point, and seems 
to be conclusive. Doctor Gregory, director of the Small-pox 
Hospital in London, published the following declaration in 
the Medical Times. June 1, 1852. “Small pox does invade 
the vaccinated, and the extirpation of that dire disorder is as 
distant as when it was first heedlessly, and in my humble 
judgment, most presumptuously anticipated by Jenner.” 
He also declares further : “ The idea of extinguishing the 
small-pox by vaccination, is as absurd as it is chimerical; 
it is as irrational as presumptuous.” He refused to permit 
This children to he vaccinated. 
Dr. Stowell for twenty years Vaccine Physician in Eng- 
land, says ; ' The nearly general declaration of my patients 10 
enables me to proclaim that vaccination is not only an illu- 
sion, but a curse to humanity.” 
Dr. Epps, director for twenty-live years of the Jenner 
Institute, says: “ The vaccine virus is a poison. As such, 
it penetrates all organic systems, and infects them in such a 
way as to act repressively on the pox. It is neither antidote 
nor corrigent; nor does it neutralise the small-pox, but only 
paralyses the expansive power of a good constitution, so that 
the disease falls back upon the mucous membranes. Nobody 
has the right to transplant such a mischievous poison into 
the life of a child,.” 
Doctor Letheby, in 1860, made special observation on ninety- 
three cases of small-pox. Out of thirty-four that died, twenty- 
one had been vaccinated. Those results were published in 
the London Medical Times. 
Dr. Collins, for twenty years Vaccine Physician in London 
and Edinburgh, writes : “There really exists no change in 
the virulent character of the small-pox, notwithstanding the 
vaccination laws ; and of those attacked by the disease, at 
least two-thirds were satisfactorily vaccinated. * * I 
have not the least confidence in vaccination ; it nauseates 
me, for it often transfers filthy and dangerous diseases from 
one to another, without offering any protection whatever.” 
Dr, Pearce, for thirty-five years Vaccine Physician in Edin- 
burgh and London, asks: “How can the historian fall into 
the error of ascribing the changed mortality from small-pox 
to vaccination \ In the first thirty years of the last century 
there died of 1,000 small-pox patients, 74 ; in the last thirty 
years of the same century, after inoculation, there died of 
1,000, 95.” 
Dr. Greenhow, of North Shields, England, in the Medical 
Gazette of January 22, 1838, asserted: “It is a well-known 
fact that the small-pox after vaccination has become of fre- 
quent occurrence.5 ’ 
Dr. George Sexton, a British Eclectic, relates the following 
personal anecdote : “A few weeks ago (1870), I went up to 
London from this town (Sheffield), and hearing that an old 
friend of mine, a man well known in theatrical circles, had 
his four children all ill, I called upon him. On enquiring how 11 
they were, he asked me if I knew vHiat was the matter with 
them. I replied that I had heard that they were suffering 
from phrenitis. ‘No,’ he said, ‘they are all down with 
small-pox ; but I have not made it known for fear it would 
drive away my customers.’ On seeing the children, I found 
that in two of them the disease had assumed a confluent 
form, and presented a most threatening aspect ; in the other 
two it was much more mild. ‘ Have they been vaccinated ?’ 
I enquired. ‘ Two of them,’ he replied; ‘the other two, I 
am sorry to say, I neglected to have done.’ ‘ And which 
two,’ I asked, ‘have been vaccinated V ‘The two oldest,’ 
he answered, ‘Well,’ I said, ‘considering that those two 
have got the disease in the very worst form, and are in a far 
more dangerous condition than the others, I do not know 
why you should be sorry that vaccination has not been ex- 
tended to the whole four.’ ” In the sequel, one of the vaccin- 
ated children died, and the other recovered, but was terribly 
pock-marked. The two that had not been vaccinated were 
speedily restored to health, with no trace of the disease to 
be observed on their faces. 
The doctor relates a conversation with a gentleman, in 
regard to the duty to enforce vaccination by compulsory law. 
“ Ton see,” said the gentleman, “if inoculating with vac- 
cine lymph will prevent the development of small-pox, I have 
the right to compel you to have your children operated upon; 
because, by your neglect, mine may suffer .” 
“How !” asked Dr. Sexton? 
“Because,” he replied, “your house may become a hot- 
bed for small-pox ; and if you live next door to me, it may 
extend to mine, and my family may take it.” 
“O, they may, may they? ” exclaimed Dr. Sexton ; “ your 
children are all vaccinated, and therefore cannot take it.” 
The gentleman laughed as he acknowledged the force of 
the question. “ Well, you have me there ; I had not thought 
of that.” 
Indeed, this is, after all, the general belief. I remember 
an occurrence, many years ago, of having been called to visit 
a patient. I administered Lobelia and Asclepias, as was my 
practice in such cases. I made a second call in a short time, 12 
and regarding myself as a novice, I requested a friend to go 
with me. No further obscurity existed as to symptoms ; 
the case was small pox. The terror evinced by my compan- 
ion astonished me. He turned deadly pale, rushed into 
another room, and called the attendants to him. He directed 
them to notify the health authorities, and then made his 
way hurriedly from the house as if in an agony of dread ; 
yet he had been vaccinated I think, repeatedly. Whether 
vaccination preserves its subjects or not, it certainly gives 
them no courage or assurance. 
Even the Chinese have had a like experience of the inu- 
tility of the practice, and Dr. Rennie, in his book entitled 
Peking and the Pekingese, says: “Since 1820, vaccination 
has been practiced to a limited extent amongst the popula- 
tion ; probably about one-fifth may be vaccinated. At one 
time it was believed to afford protection ; smalP-pox not hav- 
ing been so common after its introduction. Of recent years, 
however, confidence in it has considerably diminished, owing 
to the frequency with which those are attacked who have 
been vaccinated.” 
SMALL-POX A RECURRENT DISEASE. 
A swarm of theories have been hatched for the purpose of 
accounting for the universal failure of vaccination as a pro- 
phylactic against small-pox. One published a 
brochure to show that it was because patients were vaccinated 
only in one arm. A second hypothesis is that the virtue of 
the pox-pustule is exhausted after a few years. The sup- 
porters of this notion differ widely among themselves. 
“ Vaccination,” says one, “ ought to be repeated every seven 
years.” Another protests that that period is too long ; 
patients should be vaccinated eveiy three years. But such 
unlucky examples as this are common : “ A young man was 
vaccinated as a child, by Dr. Sexton ; when about 13 or 
14 years of age he became a gentleman’s servant, and was 
vaccinated again ; and after that Joined the army, and for 
the third time underwent this delightful operation, and had 
the small-pox after all!” 
Perhaps one great reason why vaccination does not pro- 13 
tect exists in the fact that small-pox is itself liable to occur 
again in the same individual. It is hardly, possible that 
there can be a prophylactic sufficiently potent to avert the 
liability of such recurrence. 
We have the evidence of Sir Thomas Watson, in the most 
unequivocal language. “You must recollect,” he says, 
“that small-pox itself is not a universal and absolute as- 
surance against its oion return.'1' “ During an epidemic in 
Scotland, Doctor John Thomson saw, from June, 1818, to 
December, 1819, 656 cases. Of these * * forty-one took 
the small-pox the second time, and Dr. Thomson knew of 30 
other such cases, making 71 in all.” 
Dr. William Hitchman of Liverpool, addressing the An- 
nual Conference of the British Medical Deform Association, 
held at Sheffield, July, 1878, made this statement: “Small- 
pox is now raging amongst the vaccinated. Variola of a 
malignant type, not only in this country,, but in Thun, Inter- 
laken, and Bernese Oberland, is often recurrent. 
Dr. George B. Wood, of Philadelphia, who is hardly 
willing to accept any but the uppermost place, who believes 
in vaccination, mercury, venesection, and the other barbar- 
isms of medicine, acknowledges that sometimes one attack of 
small-pox “ does not afford complete security.” He says : 
“ It cannot be denied that fatal cases of secondary small-pox 
now and then appear ; and instances are related in which the 
disease has occurred a third time in the same individual. 
Certain families appear to have an extraordinary suscepti- 
bility to the variolous contagion ; so that individuals belong- 
ing to them are much more liable to returns of the disease 
than others, and generally also have it more severely.” 
In the London Medical Gazette of November 6, 1830, is a 
letter from Mr. J. S. Chapman, Assistant-Surgeon to the 11th 
Light Dragoons, and dated at Cawnpore, India. It has the 
following: “ Small-pox has been playing the very deuce at 
this station. There appears to be no positive security against 
the disease, either by vaccination or small-pox inoculation ; 
and I have seen several cases where the patients have caught 
small-pox twice, and have each time been very severely 
marked, and in two instances have died of the second attack 14 
of small-pox. Certainly, by far'the greater number of our 
small-pox cases have occurred in persons vaccinated in India 
twelve or fifteen years ago.” 
Sir James Y. Simpson mentions a case in which the 
patient, a woman, died from the eighth attach of real small- 
pox. In the Small-Pox Hospital in London, there were 
three cases in 1867, which occurred after a previous attack of 
small-pox; two, after both vaccination and small-pox, and 
four came after inoculation. 
Hr. Wood asserts that “ certain families appear to have an 
extraordinary susceptibility to the variolous contagion.” 
This 1 also believe. In epidemic visitations, this suscepti- 
bility is more general, and it appears to diminish after the 
twenty-fifth year of life, and “some resist the disease alto- 
gether, though not previously protected in any known man- 
ner.” 
WHAT SHALL BE DONE ? 
The demonstration appears conclusive, that small-pox 
will never be eradicated, nor in any material degree mitigated 
in its severity, by vaccination or other contamination with 
blood-poison. I expect no favor or even lenient treatment, 
for uttering this conviction. The “dupe of a deep delu- 
sion,” seldom cherishes kind feeling toward the individual 
who disturbed his quiet. He prefers to be left alone in his 
mistake. It is easier to break the thermometer than to ac- 
knowledge the true state of the atmosphere; to stone the 
prophet than to heed his words. A Brahman once broke 
a microscope, because it revealed to him the living creatures 
that constituted part of his food. 
Mankind, even though they may not choose to be de- 
ceived and led by the nose, are much annoyed when they 
are required to think and act on their own responsibility. 
The charlatan has a larger following than the philosopher, 
and is certainly a great deal more noisy. But in the long- 
run, the truth must prevail. There is nothing else perma- 
nent. 11l betide the man, who knows the truth and refrains 
from uttering it. God is at the man’s side who has honest 
convictions and will speak them. I know, in this matter, 15 
that lam right. Hence, at the necessary cost, asking jus- 
tice only, and not favor, I declare my belief that vaccination 
is a fallacy, and that small-pox can only be arrested and 
uprooted as other diseases of an erysipelatous or septicsemic 
character, may be successfully combated. 
Dr. Martyn Payne used to declare, that by the employ- 
ment of medicines in the treatment of a disease, we were 
only substituting one form of morbific action for another. 
Whether this is true, or being true would be justifiable, de- 
serves attention. It is a proposition, at any rate, which 
medical men have to meet. Certainly, the acknowledgment 
that deleterious and even poisonous drugs are employed to 
combat bodily maladies, is equivalent to the confession of 
almost supreme ignorance among physicians in regard to 
physiology, and the commonest laws of health. I forbear 
to press that question. But conceding, as I do, that in the 
present imperfect condition of medical knowledge, this 
method of treatment is probably the best at our command, 
I cannot admit that it justifies or even extenuates the con- 
taminating of the blood of a healthy person, on the pretext 
of thereby absolving that person from the risk of contracting 
a worse malady. 
Some years ago a great boast was made by the Metropolitan 
Board of Health, in the city of New York, about having 
“stamped out” cholerg. The means employed seemed to 
be the almost general abandonment to certain death of those 
who were attacked by it. We were shocked at the brutali- 
ty, and what we considered the crime. To be sure, in the 
presence of epidemic, the population, as a whole, appears so 
generally to lose human sympathy and become brutalized, 
that no cruelty to dying men awakens a protest. Animals 
slay their wounded and diseased ones, and savage nations 
do likewise. In this way, I acquired a prejudice, almost a 
detestation, for the phrase “stamping out, ” from which I 
expect never to recover, I now invoke Divine Providence, 
in regard to what is in store forme, never to let me be ex- 
posed, sick and helpless, to an army surgeon, or a public 
physician in the city of New York, 16 
VACCINATION DOBS NOT PROTECT. 
That small-pox never will or can be extirpated by general 
vaccination, appears conclusive. The fact that vaccinated 
persons, even those who have been several times successful- 
ly vaccinated, have after that, contracted the disease, should, 
we would suppose, be ample evidence of this. The subsidi- 
ary fact that small-pox recurs in the same person, sometimes 
once, twice, and even to the eighth time, as Sir James Y. 
Simpson has shown, proves it. The disease is analogous to 
cholera, typhus and relapsing fever ; when epidemic, it will 
do its work almost irresistibly, and in other cases, is under 
the control of rational treatment. 
Jenner first applied his art May 14, 1796, From that time 
till 1825, thirty years, there had not been a small-pox epi- 
demic in the city of London. Vaccination all this time was 
voluntary and not compulsory. But since the general intro- 
duction of the practice, not a year passes exempt. In two 
years, from 1863 to 1865, more than twenty thousand died 
from small-pox, in London alone. During the same period, 
the scourge prevailed to an enormous extent, not only in 
England, but also in Germany, Hungary, France and Sweden, 
where the laws compel universal vaccination. In upper 
Bavaria, in that period, 1,346 were attacked, all but 90 vac- 
cinated, with malignant small-pox. Doctor Bayard, an emi- 
nent French physician, has shown that the former mortality 
from small-pox was 7 per cent. ; it is now from 15 to 20 per 
cent. 
Statistical tables further show that from 1675 to 1761, the 
yearly average of deaths by smal 1-pox was as : In 
London, 7 per cent. ; in Edinburgh, 7.6 per cent, ; in Paris, 
7.2 per cent. ; in Berlin, 8.1 percent. After inoculation was 
introduced the mortality increased to 10 per cent. Vaccina- 
tion has raised it to 15 per cent. 
The disease reached its height in 1779, and in 1801 had 
nearly disappeared. But a species of typhus, called by some 
Variola intestinalis, now developed itself, and snatched 
away many thousands more than any epidemic of small- 
pox. Prof. Nittinger of Stuttgart, mentions this malady. 17 
It is easy to see, therefore, that any apparent decline in the 
prevalence of small-pox is properly to be attributed to the 
fact that it was not epidemic at the time ; whereas, the in- 
crease has been in spite, if not in consequence of vaccina- 
tion. 
The conclusion is unavoidable, that the “ stamping out ” 
of small-pox by vaccination, or other expedient, except that 
of immediately murdering every patient as soon as attacked, 
is impossible. In this, we have the testimony of Dr. Gregory 
briefly. “The hope entertained by its illustrious and 
and amiable discoverer, that vaccination might ultimately 
exterminate small-pox off from the face of the earth, appears 
vain and unfounded. ” 
However, Jenner was neither illustrious nor a discoverer. 
There does not exist one single fact, in all the experiments 
and improvements made in science, which can support the 
idea of vaccination. The only basis is that of statistics, and 
these are very unreliable, especially when they are collected 
for the purpose of sustaining an idea. Yet the enumeration 
of patients in the small-pox hospitals, will show a larger num- 
ber vaccinated than unvaccinated. The recurrence of small- 
pox in the several countries where the law has required 
everybody to be vaccinated, shows that there is no possible 
ground for the hope that vaccination can ever terminate its 
existence on the earth. 
I acknowledge that it is an unfortunate attitude, to assail 
any inefficient measure of a prophylactic character, with- 
out offering something putatively better. But I know of no 
royal road to health. It is only repentance that cleanseth 
sin ; the road back from Avernus is very steep and discour- 
aging. Hence most prefer to leave matters as they are. He 
is a disturber, an agitator, an enthusiast, perhaps a fanatic, 
who unsettles the minds of people, and will not let them rest 
easy. I have often hesitated, for this reason. When any 
class of population appears to be willing to be fooled or en- 
slaved, it seems a fearful task to show them anything better. 
Only those who are willing to pay the price of redemption 
THE BETTER WAY. 18 
will ever be ransomed. For them and to them I will speak. 
The human body in a state of integrity, will resist any con- 
tagious infection whatever. In a condition of relative sound- 
ness it is often proof against specific agencies for the dis- 
semination of disease. We observe often that fever and 
ague, typhus, typhoid, and other malignant fevers, when 
seemingly epidemic, leave many persons unscathed. Cholera 
only seizes those who are directly liable from disorder, un- 
due fatigue, or impairment of constitution. Men and 
women .in a fair state of health, neat and orderly in their 
habits, are protected as by a wall of fire. 
The same fact exists in regard to small-pox. Only those 
will be assailed who are directly liable ; not so much from 
direct exposure to the virus or its emanations, as from some 
condition of disorder and deterioration of physical stamina. 
I am very confident that persons in a fair state of health will 
not contract the disease, even on exposure. It is sometimes 
epidemic, and then the peril is increased ; but when sporadic, 
it requires little special attention. There are always persons 
who will not be infected, because they are assured against it 
by vigorous health and perhaps idiosyncrasy. 
Health is as contagious as disease, and is easy to contract 
on exposure Only the debilitated, those who are exhausted 
by fatigue, or mastered by fear, or whose bodies are im- 
paired in their integrity, have much to apprehend from con- 
tamination by malaria, infection or other agencies dissemi- 
nating disease. The inference, therefore, is that hygiene is 
the only preventive agency to be relied upon. 
The perils of small-pox have been greatly exaggerated. 
They do not pertain, in any considerable sense, to the mala- 
dy, but to the physical condition of the patient, aside from 
the complaint. Small-pox would never be confluent, ex- 
cept he had been in a bad state of health before. Indeed, 
that very disordered condition afforded a matrix or nidus 
for the reception and incubation of the infecting principle. 
Now that the disorder has been implanted, the common- 
sense proposition for its treatment is, that of destroying the 
receptacle, the pathological condition. The idea of Aber- 
nethy, in regard to tic douleureux, applies here with equal 19 
precision. If you destroy one of the parents, there will be 
no more generation. Let the whole attention be directed to 
restoring the body to soundness, and the fury of the pesti- 
lence will die of itself. Perfect repose both of body and 
mind, cleanliness of the skin, clothing and apartments; 
pure sun-lighted air in abundance ; food of the simplest 
character, constitute the essentials of good treatment. 
I am not partial, as a general thing, to much medication. 
What I would suggest would be proposed with direct refer- 
ence to neutralising and eliminating the blood-poison. I re- 
gard the various chlorine medicines with most favor. The 
ammonium chlpride arrests the contamination of erysipelas 
and septicaemia; and whatever will do that must be the 
sure thing for variola. 
Du. Carl Botii’s Theory. 
In January, 1870, the St. Louis Medical Society appointed 
a committee to investigate the nature and causes of small- 
pox. One of that committee, Dr. C. Spinzig, presented the 
result of his enquiries in a pamphlet, entitled Variola: 
Causes, Nature, and Prophylaxis. It was at once disap- 
proved as unsound in premises, fallacious in reasoning, and 
illogical in conclusion. But no attempt was made at 
refutation. 
The Medical World was opposed to the writer, and so it 
was considered, that to deny was equivalent to disproving. 
Dr. Carl Both, of Boston, has propounded similar views. 
They are certainly entitled to careful consideration. Ac- 
cording to this writer, “Small-pox consists of an escape of 
something into the skin, which causes it to swell, and by a 
process of putrefaction destroys it, and not unfrequently 
carries off the patient. This mass which is thus exuded or 
thrown off into the skin, must necessarily come from the 
blood ; therefore it must be something in the blood, which is 
abnormal, sickly, or bad, or there must be something which 
has deranged the whole system to such a degree, that the 
blood, as a consequence, is disturbed in an exceedingly pecu. 
liar way.” 
He accordingly calls attention to the constitution of the 20 
blood—water, albuminous combinations and blood-salts. 
The albumen is the portion that nourishes the body. But 
there is a limit or bound to its usefulness. The sympathetic 
nerve, also, being abused by stimulants or improper living, 
may relax in the skin, and produce the condition known as 
measles, or scarlet fever, or chicken-pox or small-pox ; or if 
the living membranes of the internal canals of the body, are 
affected, scurvy, typhus, cholera and the like, may be the 
condition. In case of a lack of albumen, the blood will no 
longer coagulate, and will flow or filter through the vessels, 
as in scurvy and also in typhus and small-pox, after fever 
has reduced the volume of that material. 
In small-pox, an extraordinary nervous irritation has pro- 
duced a spasmodic contraction of the peripheric portion of 
the nerve, and thus obstructs the free circulation of the skin, 
producing a dull headache from the congestion. The nerve 
suddenly relaxing, allows the blood to rush into the now 
powerless vessels, extending them to the utmost, until 
they either burst or remain in this overfilled condition. 
The exuded mass of blood begins to putrefy, destroys the 
surrounding tissues, and finally dries up, leaving the skin in 
a more or less mutilated condition ; or else the patient dies 
from general blood-poisoning or exhaustion, in consequence 
of the total absence of a re-established digestion. 
In short, the predisposition to small-pox consists in an 
undue proportion of albuminous matter to the blood-salts. 
Dr. Both believes that small-pox may be evolved de novo, 
in this peculiar condition of the blood. “ Without the daily 
use of salt,” he declares, “ the toper becomes more or less 
bloated in appearance, and is not only an easy prey to small- 
pox when exposed, but is in that condition under which 
smallpox can originate in him at any time. Therefore, we 
find small-pox among races or nations that use alcohol free- 
ly.” 
He also narrates the case of the commander of a vessel, 
who contracted small-pox, as he considers, in this spon- 
taneous manner. The vessel left Europe having on board 
twenty-two sailors and one passenger ; the fare consisted of 
pickled meats, starch, flour and potatoes. After being three 21 
months out, two of the sailors were taken sick with small- 
pox, The meat had been pickled with saltpetre and not 
with salt, in order, probably, to avoid scurvy. It tasted so 
bitter after twenty-four hours of soaking, that he ate a good 
deal of starch and flour to counteract the taste. No salt was 
eaten at all. 
Saltpetre is a nitrogenous combination, and closely allied 
to albumen. The same seaman had never known or heard 
of scurvy and small-pox on the same vessel. 
His sister, Dr. Both informs us, had the malignant small- 
pox twice, although she had been vaccinated. 
The result of the superfluity of albumen in the blood, pro- 
duces a nervous irritation, which may become sufficient to 
induce the blood to part with ■ the superfluous element. It 
is thrown to the skin, and so constitutes the‘condition com- 
monly called small-pox. “ A person who does not exhibit 
this superabundance of albuminous matter in his blood, is 
not liable to small-pox under any circumstances of expo- 
sure, or contact with patients suffering from this disorder.” 
Dr. Both considers that the prevention afforded by vacci- 
nation, is due to the lessened or diminished amount of al- 
bumen in the blood, occasioned by the ulcer produced. 
There is nothing specific in the virus, whatever its source ; 
and indeed, the vaccine virus generally employed is nothing 
but pus ; the introduction of which into the blood is a crim- 
inal offense under any circumstances. Inoculation with pus 
or morbid organic matter is dangerous, producing malignant 
ulcers. Hence, swelling of the axillary glands, ulceration 
and other serious consequences sometimes have followed 
vaccination. 
The employment of artificial ulcers to rectify the blood is 
an old expedient, and was employed by the Chinese long- 
before our history began. It was done to remove “ humors,” 
as our grandmothers expressed it, from the blood. What 
the humors were, nobody could tell; but now we know 
them to be histolytic and other albuminous substances not 
properly eliminated. An ulcer consumes a great deal of al- 
bumen owing to the cell-formation constantly going on. If it 
is kept open long enough it would remove the superfluous 22 
albumen, and thus procure immunity from small-pox. 
“ The preventive power of vaccination lies in this waste of 
albumen, and in nothing else.” 
Any ulcer would have the same effect. In this waste of al- 
bumen, we have the explanation of the fact that patients 
suffering from chronic ulceration, do not contract certain 
blood-disorders. A consumptive person is never attacked 
by typhus or small-pox. But an ulcer will not invariably 
rectify the blood, except prompt nutrition and excretion are 
going on at the same time. Dr, Both further insists that 
nothing whatever, of a specific character, can be found in 
small-pox or vaccine matter, or in excreta in cholera or other 
disease. 
His conclusions are, therefore : 1. That small-pox consists 
in the escape superfluous albuminous substances, into the 
tissues of the periphery of the nervous centres of the body, 
caused, in the first place, by the want of salt. 2. A proper 
use of salt is the most certain preventive of small-pox. 3. 
The use of organic acids is the best means of freeing the 
blood from abnormal substances. 4. Alcohol eliminates the 
blood-salts. 5. Sugar may take the place of salt to the de- 
triment of the blood. 6. In mental labor, more salt is brought 
into requisition than in muscular or physical labor; and, 
therefore, more must be used or taken into the body in* that 
case. 7, A person who has properly-balanced blood cannot 
contract small-pox under any circumstance of exposure. 
If these positions are correct, “the proper itse of salt in 
the human economy will eradicate small-pox at_once and for- 
ever.” 
REMEDIES FOR SMALL-POX. 
A confirmatory testimony in favor of organic acids, as a 
means of purifying and correcting the blood, is offered by 
Edward Hine, in a letter to the Liverpool Mercury. “lam 
willing to risk my reputation,” says he, “if the worst case 
of small-pox cannot be cured in three days simply by the 
use of cream of tartar. One ounce of cream of tartar dis- 
solved in a pint of water, drank at intervals when cold, is a 
certain, never-failing remedy. It has cured thousands; 23 
never leaves a mark ; never causes blindness'; and avoids 
tedious lingering.” 
A formula, accredited to the University of Paris, is said 
to be specific for small-pox, scarlatina, and other zymotic 
and exanthematous diseases., R. Zinci sulphat., digitalis 
foliarum pulv., act, gr. j. Add a half-teaspoonful of 
sugar, and mix with two table-spoonfuls of water. Afterward 
add four ounces of water. Give the patient a table- 
spoonful every hour, or a proportionate dose to a child, ac- 
cording to age. Either disease, it is asserted, will disappear 
in twelve hours. 
At a meeting of the Medical Association of Alabama, in 
1872, Dr. G. D. Norris, of Huntsville, reported that during 
the prevalence of small-pox in that town, certain families, at 
the instance of “some unknown person,” (an irregular 
practitioner, doubtless), had resorted to the free use of a 
decoction of the root of the black cohosh (Cimicifuga race- 
mosa). They escaped the contagion ; and it was found im- 
possible to affect them by vaccination till they had discon- 
tinued the use of the remedy. 
Baptisia and hydrastis are mentioned by Dr. J. J. Garth 
Wilkinson as possessing analogous virtues. Some would 
employ the tincture of gelsemium, and very probably with 
benefit, to alleviate the congestion and other symptoms. 
Having now suggested various methods to arrest and treat 
this malady, I will now resume the original topic, and call 
attention to the character of vaccination and the mischiefs 
which it is accused of producing. 
WHAT IS “VACCINE VIKUS” 1 
Jenner, it is well known, confessed that the “lymph” 
evolved in cow-pox was totally inoperative as a protection 
against variola. His modern disciples have departed from 
his teachings, and often make a specialty of procuring and 
using virus fresh from the calf. It is but just to remind 
them and the public, whom they are duping, that they are 
bepraising the very article that Jenner asserted to be use- 
less. 
No cow or bullock ever had the disease, which he relied 24 
upon in the generation of his great prophylactic, except by 
having been contaminated from an alien source. The “vac- 
cine disease” which he described was peculiar to certain 
dairies ; and in those dairies Jenner ascertained that men were 
employed in milking. Following np this clew, he further 
made out that those men had also the charge of the farm- 
horses, Next, he learned that the teats of the cows gene- 
rally began to exhibit the specific eruption at that time of 
the year when a complaint called “ the grease” chiefly pre- 
vailed among the horses. Hence, he concluded that the 
malady was conveyed to the cows by the hands of the men, 
who had been dressing the heels of horses affected with 
“ the grease.” 
This disease consists of an enlargement or swelling of the 
heels of the animal, from which exudes a quantity of filthy 
purulent matter, of a disgusting appearance, and having a 
most offensive smell. Jenner describes it as “possessing 
properties of a peculiar kind, and seemingly capable of 
generating a disease in the human body, which bears so 
strong a resemblance to small-pox, that 1 think it highly 
;probable that it may he the source of that disease.'1'1 
Jenner frequently employed the virus just as it had been 
obtained from the horse’s heels, and, indeed, was of opinion 
that there could he no protection against small-pox in any 
system of vaccination, where the ichor had not this origin. 
The manifestation in the heels is not a local but a constitu- 
tional disease. Hr. Collins has given us the pathological 
anatomy; “I have seen the fatty excresence cut off and 
burned with nitric acid, and other local treatment had re- 
course to ; but the grapy-looking mass gradually increased, 
the whole limb of the animal being implicated, and the foe- 
tor from the breath very offensive, especially in the latter 
stage of the disease, when the animals were obliged to be 
slaughtered. The post-mortem appearances, by the way, 
must not be lost sight of, and are, in a pathological sense, 
very instructive. Ist. There was a general anmmic look of 
the body, wasting of the tissues, and an unusual thickening 
or fullness of the lymphatic glands. 2d. Lips, tongue and 
gums covered with peculiar cankerous-looking ulcers, and 25 
much swollen ; the whole mucous membrane much softened 
and covered with dark livid spots ; ulceration of the larynx 
and trachea ; the lungs highly congested, and large cavities 
ramifying through the substance of the organ, tilled with 
purulent matter, corresponding in every particular, both in 
foetor and character, to that exuding from the greasy heels, 
and which is seen in the last stage of consumption in the 
human subject.” 
The terrible fact is thus disclosed : 
Vaccine Virus originally, is the rotten pus formed 
IN the body of a horse diseased with pulmonary con- 
sumption. 
“ Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.” 
Attention lias already been directed to the fact that per- 
sons in actual health, and not exhausted by fatigue or other 
cause, are exempt from small-pox and kindred maladies. 
Certainly, it is not good sense, to place in the blood of 
such individuals, the virus of any disease. If a person pos- 
sesses a fair integrity of constitution,-it should be preserved 
and protected. The endeavor to compel him to contract a 
disease is an outrage. He can never hope, after such contam- 
ination, to regain his former purity of body ; he is thence- 
forth tainted, and made liable to a host of ailments. The 
experience of syphilisation is in point. Persons who never 
contracted syphilis or gonorrhoea, are with impunity 
brought into frequent contact with the disease. But, when 
once infected, there ensues an impairment of healthy con • 
ditions, a peculiar and heightened susceptibility, which ren- 
ders subsequent exposures almost certain to communicate 
disease. 
The vaccinating of a healthy person is an act of this char- 
acter. It is the infusing of a contaminating element into his 
system. Once implanted there, the body seldom or never 
regains its previous integrity. Dr. Dickson, the chrono- 
thermalist, used to teach that diseases were not recovered 
from, but that intervals took place between the attacks. 
Something of this sort is true about the vaccine, or as it 
should more accurately be designated, the equine disease. 
THE DEADLY RESULTS OF VACCINATION. 26 
It first destroys the stamina and purity of the constitution, 
so that the person is always afterward more liable than ever 
to contract disorder of an analogous character; and after 
that Ave may look for one and another attack, which nosolo- 
gy may call by another name, but which really is, as the 
Indian expressed it, “that same old drunk.” 
Consumption follows in the footsteps of vaccination, as 
certainly and as unequivocally, as an effect follows a cause. 
Wherever it is. common to vaccinate, scrofula and tuberculo- 
sis are general. We have no right to expect otherwise. 
The sputum of phthisis is itself as poisonous as the glan- 
der-poison of a horse ; and will cause the development of 
tubercle in every person’s body almost, who consents to 
be inoculated. The “grease” being itself consumptive, 
sufficiently taints or degenerates the body of the vaccinated 
person, so as to make that disease more general, and if possi- 
ble, more deadly. Having that disease for its parent, it would 
be a marvel, indeed, if consumption should not be, as it is, 
its abundant offspring. 
In Massachusetts, where great pains are taken to dissemi- 
nate the terrible poison, consumption appears to be a per- 
petual epidemic, A few years ago the Governor of Connec- 
ticut made the mortality in that state from that destroyer a 
topic of his annual message. 
The report of the Epidemiological Society of London slioavs 
that, while in England, in the twelve years extending from 
1853 to 1865, deaths from small-pox diminished from 82,825, 
for tAvelve previous years, to 47,710, there were upward of 
100,000 more dying of measles, scarlatina, aaTioo ping-cough, 
and croup', or, as we have the name new-fangled, diphtheria. 
In the same period, the increase of deaths from consump- 
tion was barely short of 230,000. 
The registrar-general’s report for 1869 contained the record 
of 53,734 deaths from phthisis alone. The Medical Times 
and Gazette for January 1, 1854, acknowledged that con- 
sumption had Avidely spread since the introduction of vaccin- 
ation ; and during the proceeding ten years had slain 68,204 
in the metropolis alone. 
Prof. Bartlett, of New York University Medical College, 27 
remarks: “In 208 children who had been vaccinated, 138 
died of tubercular consumption, 170 of other maladies ; in 95 
who were not vaccinated, 30 only died of tubercular con- 
sumption, and 65 of other disease.” 
Many pathologists believe that scrof ulosis is the precursor 
of phthisis. I doubt this, but not for reasons that are entirely 
conclusive to my judgment. lam of opinion, nevertheless, 
that the scrofulous fluid is of a character, as well as consistency 
materially different from that of the tubercle. It has been 
suggested that pork-eating was a disseminator of the com 
plaint. The Jews, it is asserted by many, enjoy great immu- 
nity from struma, measles, and analogous disorders. This 
is attributed to their abstinence from pork. One of that 
Semitico-Phoenician race, however, has informed me that 
although the Jews may have been formerly exempt from 
scrofula, it has became very general among them since they 
were compelled to undergo vaccination. 
Copland’s Medical Dictionary would confirm this state- 
ment. “It is certain,” says he, “ that scrofulous and tuber- 
cular diseases have increased since the introduction of cow- 
pox, and that the vaccine favors particularly the prevalence 
of various forms of scrofula.” 
Niemeyer, a champion of the practice, nevertheless ac- 
knowledges that “ cow-pox leaves scrofulous affections be- 
hind.” 
Borham declares that the lymph taken from unhealthy 
persons laid the foundation of scrofulous and tubercular 
disease. Be Terze, of Paris, asserts that “typhus, scrofula, 
and tubercules are transformed internal small-pox.” Doctor 
Pearce, of England, declared that where vaccination was 
compulsory, he had observed an increase of mortality. 
Baron Michel showed that in the case of 25,000 soldiers at 
Paris, since vaccination, mortality had doubled. Doctor 
Schlegel, of Saxony, finds “the number of unfortunates 
who suffer from affections of the eyes, ears, speech, and 
mind infinitely greater now than before vaccination.” 
Doctor Dongan Bird is emphatic: “The blood of the 
whole British population is saturated with scrofulous and 
tubercular diseases, which are more destructive to the youth 28 
and flower of the European races than ever were the cholera, 
plague, or most bloody wars of Napoleon.” 
Not only is this true of the British people, but in every 
country in Europe in which vaccination is compelled by law, 
almost everybody is scrofulous. The royal family of Eng- 
land, with its immense army of German cousins, overflows 
with ichor. The House of Hapsburgh has no happier record. 
The Bourbons, very naturally, all have the malady. The 
Romanoffs are no more fortunate. There are thirty-nine 
families in Europe that are pure-blooded and blue-blooded 
enough for royal princes to marry into, and all but two or 
three are scrofulous. 
Yet, many pathologists would trace the taint to another 
origin. Four centuries ago Europe had an epidemic of 
syphilis. It traveled from south to north, from court to 
court, entering the French king’s bed, and leaving its marks 
pretty much everywhere. In the track of this pest, scrofula 
has been firmly rooted ever since. Observation would seem 
to show that the taint, or hereditary liability, follows lin- 
eages like a very Nemesis. Even when it has been “ cured ” 
by mercury, and though there is no hydrargyrosis or tertiary 
manifestation, a disease appears to be present, to contami- 
nate offspring or cause abortion. 
The inference from all this is that the scrofula of Europe 
had its source in syphilis. The next inquiry will be whether 
it is an effect or a form of that disease. Broussais appears 
to be of opinion that sc.rofula is a kind of chronic syphilis, 
and that it can, under peculiar conditions, be rendered acute. 
In such event vaccination might, in certain cases, communi- 
cate syphilis from a scrofulous patient, and more certainly 
establish scrofula in the other instance, as well as the more 
active ailment. Whether the scrofulous taint is transmitted 
with the virus employed, or whether it is the sequel of atavic, 
or other forms of syphilis, are questions of some moment. 
But we suppose that the so-called bovine lymph would be 
recommended in such a contingency. Our own belief is that 
any form of the disease works a deterioration of stamina and 
degeneracy of constitution, of which scrofulosis is the off- 29 
shoot. The comparative filthiness of the lymph is a secondary 
matter. 
But it is hardly necessary to speculate in this manner. 
There is evidence enough of syphilis propagating itself both 
by the natural method and by the lancet of the vaccinators. 
We have cited cases enough to sicken anybody. It seems 
as if a man who could tolerate vaccination after these exam- 
ples, would fiddle if the world was on fire, at least till the 
flames came around his own seat. 
OTHER DANGEROUS DISEASES. 
St. Grervais, Hufeland, Hertwig, Most, Grrisolle, Canstatt, 
Beduar and others, count up some thirty dangerous diseases 
as direct consequences of vaccination. 
That vaccine virus should induce pymmia and erysipelas, 
is obvious on first sight. On the body of the cow it produces 
inflammation and suppuration of the sexual organs. Dr. 
Nittinger, of Stuttgart, asserts that, “ The membranes, par- 
ticularly those of the organs of the senses and generation in 
adults, attest the sufferings and dangers originating in the 
inoculated kine-pox poison, ophthalmia, otorrhcea, fluor al- 
bus, prurigo, etc.” 
This author has been very explicit and forcible in his de- 
clarations upon the subject.* In response to an application of 
the British Parliament, he made a statement of great length, 
setting forth the evils of the practice. One entirely new 
disease, the softening of the stomach, f he declares, “ has been 
added since 1811-1818 to one immensely large catalogue of 
destructive diseases.” 
He enumerates the following, namely: 
“1. An immense degree of sickly sensitiveness of the 
stomach and intestinal canal, accompanied by open and hid- 
den disturbances in the whole digestive apparatus, namely, 
diarrhoea, dyspepsia, phthisis dyspeptica, liver and spleen 
suffering, never known before. 
“2. An entirely new disease (since 1806) which domesti- 
* Evils of Vaccination. 
f Jaeger & Camerer. 30 
cates itself every year more firmly, the typhus,* which is a 
mucous fever, with ulcerations and pox-eruptions in the ab- 
dominal viscera. 
“3. The daily more frequent appearance of a new children- 
disease, which Millar observed and presented (1755) as the 
first fruit of inoculation in England—the Asthma Millari. 
“4. The unfortunate children have gained, or rather re- 
gained, in an immensely more malignant form (since 1806), 
the long-before forgotten inflammation of the wind-pipe, 
croup. As formerly in England, nature revolted (1788) 
against the inoculation of the human small-pox matter, and 
tried valiantly to remove the poison by means of catarrhal 
gangrenous Angina in the throat—as children, for nearly 
forty years, suffered the tortures of horrible strangulation- 
difficulties, and many thousands of them, wretchedly per- 
ished ; so there appears now here, and everywhere when 
vaccination is introduced, the croup,—somewhat milder, 
because the kine-pox is somewhat milder—and tortures, 
frightens, sickens and kills the innocent victims. 
“5. The whooping-cough has gained in severity and extent 
immensely. 
“6. The human family, in general, has acquired a mon- 
strous increase in consumptive and hectic diseases, which 
mostly originate in the digestive apparatus, phthisis dyspep- 
tica, or dyspeptic consumption. 
“7. An entirely new disease, softening of the stomach, 
has been added, since 1811-1818, to our immensely large cat- 
alogue of destructive diseases, 
“8. Our young women have gained, since 1822, a general- 
ity of chlorosis and fiuor albus, of which we did not dream 
before. 
“9. The whole human family have been enriched by the 
*Yilette de Terze ; La Vaccine, Ses Consequences Funestes. Paris, 1857 : 
“Typhus, scrofula and tubercle are transformed internal small-pox. 
Samuel Henry Dickson : Scrofvlosis and Tuberculosis. “Of the three similar 
cachexise, typhosis, tuberculosis and scrofulosis, we may regard typhosis as the 
most acute, tuberculosis as intermediate, and scrofulosis as the most chronic. 31 
acquisition of the Bengalian poison-snake—hydr-ophis—the 
tropical wild-pox poison, the cholera, which has now estab- 
lished itself among us thoroughly and habitually.* 
“ 10. Our generation has, besides this, gained a far greater 
susceptibility for the small-pox poison, which will ravage in 
the above-mentioned diseased forms of the mucous mem- 
brane, till the feeding of the poison by vaccination, or- 
dered even by laws, sanctioned by the usage and held up by 
the Faculty, is forbidden by severe penalty. 
Others, as well as Dr, Nittinger, made analogous observa- 
tions. The extraordinary sensitiveness of the stomach, now 
so common, has been noted, as well as the disturbances of 
the whole digestive apparatus, as diarrhoea, dyspepsia, dys- 
peptic consumption, disorder of the liver and spleen, etc. 
The typhus, a mucous fever accompanied by ulceration and 
a peculiar eruption resembling small-pox in the abdominal 
viscera, has become more common. 
Pneumonia, or more correctly, pneumonical fever, is now of 
remarkable frequency ; and the mortality from it appears to 
increase, year by year. 
Spasmodic croup is more frequent among children. 
Whooping-cough is more common ; and diphtheria has be- 
come a scourge of Nemesis. We acknowledge that we do not 
believe half of what is written about this latter complaint, 
and that its name is often whimsically applied in the daily 
newspapers. But we do agree with Dr. Nittinger, that it has 
become a general malady, and that this frequency and extra- 
ordinary malignancy is a sequence of vaccination. Dr. Greg- 
ory and other vaccinators believed that the mucous mem- 
branes were made thereby the seat of animal poison. It is 
well known that small-pox eruptions are found in the inner 
coatings of the body. The intestinal membranes of persons 
dying from abdominal typhus are covered with similar erup- 
tions. An intimate relation exists between this disorder and 
cholera. Can it be that Asiatic cholera is a consequence of 
vaccination ? 
*lt has been observed not only that pox was observable in the intestines of 
cholera victims, but that epidemics of small-pox ensued after those of cholera. 32 
The relapsing fever, which seems to have originated in the 
poorer and more crowded parts of London, and has been 
brought hither several times by emigrant ships, is possibly 
another visitation from the same prolific sources. It resem- 
bled the famine plague, which devastated Ireland in 1847, 
and, coming over in 1848, was accepted as cholera. 
Verily, “diseases have changed.” We have diphtheria 
for our children and consumption for our adults, in extra- 
ordinary proportions. No disease, not even small-pox itself, 
has been or can be checked by vaccination ; but such as we 
have are rendered more deadly. Scrofula is obtaining a 
foothold that will require generations to uproot. 
TESTIMONY TAKEN BY PARLIAMENT. 
In 1855, Doctor Simon, who was opposed to compulsory 
vaccination, was commissioned by Parliament to procure 
the opinion of the highest medical authorities of England. 
He addressed 539 physicians, whom he had supposed to 
approve of vaccination, and received 235 answers of simply, 
“Yes,” or “No 72 that only allowed the genuine Jenner 
vesicle; 16 that “approved unconditionally,” and 216 that 
objected, as follows : 
1. It directly endangers life. 
2. It nurses and develops latent diseases. 
3. Children frequently do not thrive so well, after as before 
vaccination, especially during teething, change of teeth and 
puberty. 
4. It introduces new diseases into the body of the pa- 
tient. 
Dr. Skelton says: “I have belonged many years to the 
great army of vaccinators, but cannot take any longer upon 
myself the responsibility connected with the operation, be- 
cause vaccine does not protect, hut it also produces other 
diseases.” 
Dr. Collins testified to the appearance of scrofula ; Dr. 
Pearce to a large increase of consumption ; Mr. Whitehead 
to syphilitic contamination ; G. S. Gibson to large increase in 
infant mortality ; Mr. Emery to ulcerous sores ; Mr. Covington 33 
to consumption ; Mr. Addison, who was compelled against his 
will to obey the law, to a rash which ended in death. 
The Rev. Hume-Rothery testified : “ I had a healthy child 
which suffered from a very large series of very large boils, 
coming on three months after vaccination—which I believe 
to be the cause. 
“Another case, a healthy child, nine months old when 
vaccinated, was afterward afflicted with sore eyes for many 
years, and they are still weak. It was afterward found that 
sore eyes prevailed in the family from which she was vaccin- 
ated. 
“A third case, a fortnight after vaccination (at nine months,) 
became covered with an offensive eruption all over the body ; 
is now three years old, and has seldom since been free from 
sores and scabs. Her elder brother, not vaccinated, father 
and mother, and families are remarkably healthy. 
“ A fourth case, now four years old, healthy before vac- 
cination, has never since been so. Nine months after, foul 
sores broke out, which continued, and appear likely to con- 
tinue. There is a hole in one hand, and the foot is probably 
crippled for life. 
“In the fifth case, vaccinated when a babe, the family on 
all sides perfectly healthy, cancer appeared on the chin at 
eighteen months old ; and she lost the left breast from can- 
cer at thirteen. It was discovered on enquiry by the doctor, 
that the mother of the childfrom whom the lymph was taken 
had a cancer, of which she subsequently died. 
“ A sixth case, exceedingly well before vaccination, was 
never well afterward. Its flesh rotted on the slightest 
scratch of a pin, and now and then broke out into scabs and 
sores. It died when twenty months old. 
“ Six other children were vaccinated from this child, not 
one of whom survived. 
“ A seventh case, a healthy babe before vaccination, be- 
came ever afterward an indescribable sufferer, and died at 
nearly eight, his body being literally rotten. His father, 
mother and five other children were all remarkably healthy. 
“In an eighth case, a healthy boy four months old, was 
vaccinated. Three months afterward the arm began to break 34 
out ; the head was one mass of sores, which continued for 
twelve months. I believe it was syphilis. There had never 
been any disease in the parents’ families. 
“ All these cases were in Middleton. ” 
BLOOD-POISONING. 
Other venomous and contagious diseases are oftentimes 
transmitted with the contaminating virus. Pymmia is to be ex- 
pected. Erysipelas is the legitimate sequence. Other dis- 
orders which erysipelas very aptly represents, may doubt- 
less be included in that category. Mary Magdalene may 
have had seven devils cast out of her, but when vaccination 
occurs, a legion of devils comes in. 
Dr. Siljestrom, a member of the Parliament at Stockholm, 
Sweden, states the question as follows: “I have always felt 
that if vaccination does not stand against small-pox, it is 
nothing ; if it does so stand, millions to one but what it im- 
parts other and more powerful disorders into the system. 
My own coachman’s child took erysipelas concurrently with 
vaccination ; and both the child and its mother who was 
nursing it, who had had the small-pox, died of erysij>elas. 
I knew also the case of an eminent literary man, crippled 
with a skin-affection, a kind of eczema of the leg, ever since 
being re-vaccinated four years ago. I have often—almost 
daily—heard parents say: “ My children have never been the 
same since they were vaccinated. ” 
SYPHILIS. 
It may be regarded as certain that a vaccinated person 
will contract syphilis and its*associate disorders under con- 
ditions which, if he had not been thus blood-poisoned, would 
have suffered him to escape. Indeed, lam of opinion that 
it appears oftfener under such circumstances than from a 
contagion otherwise encountered. The following is the tes- 
timony of witnesses who may be regarded as experts : 
Ricord testifies: “Formerly I denounced the idea that 
syphilis could be transmitted by vaccination ; to-day, I do 
not hesitate to proclaim that it is so propagated,” 35 
Doctor Bamberger, of Warzberg, says: “lam convinced 
that contagious disease—syphilis, for instance—is commu- 
nicable with the lymph in vaccination; nay, such a case 
happened a short time ago in a town a few miles from this 
place. After due enquiry into the circumstances of the case, 
the practitioner was found guilty by the court of justice, 
and condemned to prison for several months.” 
Mr. Star tin, of England, gives it as his opinion that the 
true Jennerian vesicle, in a subject suffering under constitu- 
tional or acquired syphilis, may be the means of transmit- 
ting this disease, and adds that “ he has seen it many times 
transferred from such a vesicle.” 
Cerioli reports a case as follows : “In 1841, a child born of 
syphilitic parents, but having no symptoms of syphilis at the 
time, was used to provide lymph to vaccinate sixty-four per- 
sons, who were all syphilized. The first symptom was ulcer- 
ation about the seat of puncture, followed later by copper- 
colored spots all over the body, ulcers of the groin, genitals, 
anus, and mouth. Eight children and two women died,” * 
It is certain, that during the late civil war in the United 
States, syphilis was liberally disseminated by the surgeons, 
who ignorantly or recklessly vaccinated their patients with 
tainted virus. 
LEPROSY. 
Doctor Makewell, having been summoned before the com- 
mittee of the British House of Commons, made the following 
alarming statement: 
“ There is a very strong opinion among medical men in the 
West Indies, that leprosy has been communicated by vacci- 
nation. They often apply to me for lymph from England, 
though there would be an equal chance of English lymph be- 
ing contaminated by syphilis. I have seen several cases of 
leprosy in which vaccination seemed to be the only explana- 
tion. 1 have a case now, a child from India, a leper—both 
parents being English. I saw another, a Creole of Trinidad, 
also of English parents. 
“ Sir Ranald Martin agreed with me, that the leprosy arose 
* Journal des Connaissances Medicates, 1865. 36 
from vaccination. I have seen several cases of leprosy re- 
sulting from vaccination. I arrived at the conclusion with 
reluctance, in the face of difficulties.” 
OTHER DISORDERS 
Other pests are transmitted, many of them disgusting and 
deadly. Abscesses, external ulceration, scab, prurigo, and 
a hundred annoying kinds of eruption and sore, are induced. 
The number is legion. 
Langenbeck, Lebert and Follier, assert that cancer as well 
as syphilis can be thus transplanted ; Villemin, Cornil, 
Simon and others, that the same can be done with tubercles. 
Doctor Plagge observes that the causes of increasing suicide 
and insanity, are not to be searched in social conditions, but 
in the terrible progress of the corruption of the human fluids. 
I have already recounted the variola intestinalis or abdomi- 
nal typhus, scarlatina, crouf), diphtheria, female diseases, 
and that bane of American life, dyspeptic consumption. I 
do not suppose any of these to be directly communicated by 
vaccination. The constitution is only tainted, made sus- 
ceptible, its integrity impaired, so that these diseases readily 
appear. 
A BUBBLE INFLATED AND BRICKED, 
The Epidemiological Society of London has endeavored, 
with great industry, to prop up the practice by statistics. 
British legislation has spread it about by fines and impris- 
onment, despite the dissenting judgment of men like Sir 
Robert Peel, W. E. Gladstone, and Francis W. Newman. 
But, as Herbert Spencer aptly remarks : “ Medical popery, 
which men think so defensible, is parallel to the religious 
popery which they think so indefensible.” 
A report of the society states that before the Compulsory 
Vaccination Law of 1853 in England, there died of small- 
pox, during twelve years, 82,825 persons ; after 1853, in a 
like period, there had only 47,710 died of the same disease. 
A further examination of this report, however, gives us 
some other statistics that require looking to : 37 
1. During twenty-four years, 130,585 persons died of small- 
pox. The average mortality, from this disease, was 7 per 
cent, before the vaccine disease ; so that it would seem that, 
despite universal compulsory vaccination, two millions of 
persons had small-pox. 
2. Where small-pox decreased, there was an increase of 
other skin-diseases ; thus, from 1858 to 1865, upward of 
100.000 more persons died of measles, scarlatina, whooping- 
cough, and croup (diphtheria) than ever before. 
3. Nearly 230,000 more persons died of consumption than 
ever before. 
4. Of the small-pox patients, about 84 per cent, were vac- 
cinated. 
Sir James Y. Simpson, himself a supporter of vaccination, 
furnishes us with a more complete view of this matter. He 
declare “during the ten years, from 1856 to 1866, above 
61.000 persons died of small-pox in Great Britain ; and, if 
we calculate proxiraately from the population, above 12,000 
more in Ireland, making upward of 53,000 in the United 
Kingdom. In the ten years from 1855 onward, there died in 
the United Kingdom, from scarlatina, above 280,000 ; from 
measles, above 130,000; from whooping-cough, above 
150,000.” 
Herr Kolb, an eminent German statistician, presents the 
most specific, candid and reliable explanation of the statistics 
which had been submitted by the advocates of vaccination. 
He boldly declared it impossible that the disappearance of 
epidemic small-pox about the time of the introduction of 
that practice, could have been due to “ the newly-introduced 
panacea.” Small-pox, he asserts, was already on the de- 
cline in proportion as inoculation became less general. In 
1802 there were in all Germany not more than thirty thou- 
sand vaccinated persons in a population of thirty millions ; 
while in England, in 1807, according to a report of the Col- 
lege of Physicians, about 1£ per cent., or a little more than 
164.000 were “protected.” Allowing that this minority were 
rejoicing in their “absolute and life-long protection,” how 
came it to pass that this same immunity was granted to 
the remaining millions of nnraccinafed people ? 38 
“It is clear,” says lie, “that while so few were vac- 
cinated, the cow-pox could not have formed the only possible 
safeguard against the spread of infection. Very striking 
is the experience of Sweden. In 1800, the small-pox 
mortality was fifty-one in ten thousand of population. 
In 1801 the number of vaccinated persons was only 
eight thousand, yet the mortality fell to twenty-four. In 
1802, it fell to seven. But instead of drawing the very 
natural conclusion that small-pox was on the decline, the 
newly-vaccinated eight thousand were, credited with spread- 
ing their salvation over the remaining 2,500,000 of inhabi- 
tants ! And these are Vaccination Statistics ! 
It is hardly probable that with the sentiment of the most 
enlightened men of Europe forming and concentrating against 
the practice, it can long withstand the pressure. This “ crime 
against nature,” as Dr. Bayard styled it, predisposing the 
human family to boils and putridity, “doubling the mor- 
tality among young people ; ” multiplying disorders of the 
eyes, ears, speech, and mind, as Professor Schlegel asserts ; 
shortening life, will doubtless, ere long, succumb before the 
Anti-Vaccination Leagues that are forming in all parts of 
that continent. Several European sovereigns have already 
forbidden re-vaccination in their armies, because of the in- 
crease in the mortality among vaccinated soldiers. As the 
world moves, blood-poisoning with venesection and drug- 
Xioisoning will disappear from its place in medical practice. 
In this country, the profession will only follow. There is 
not the moral courage here that is displayed by men of 
learning in the Old World. There is a tendency exhibited 
toward the authorising of Medical Boards in the States, 
clothed with arbitrary powers. It was probably an out- 
growth of the civil war, and is greatly to be deplored. With 
such legislation, men will learn to calculate the value of in- 
stitutions. A free government is impossible where a privi- 
leged caste is permitted to make the laws. It is no better to 
have Health Boards or Medical Corporations establishing re- 
gulations, than common politicians. 
I have noticed a timidity in public journals, in regard to 
this matter of vaccination. Ido not know of a single daily 39 
newspaper, that would admit a communication opposing the 
practice. Perhaps, the New York Herald is an exception. 
In 1874, I offered a paper to the late Samuel R. Wells, 
of the Phrenological Journal. He was a man of deep con- 
victions, and had been very outspoken in his advocacy of 
“Hygiene” and opposition to medication. But he hesi- 
tated to publish so extreme an article. It was finally re- 
duced to a series of questions, published, and never an- 
swered. * 
It is in Europe, where government is more despotic and 
public opinion more courageous, that abuses may be extin- 
guished and denounced. I admire men like Kolb, who 
boldly depicts vaccination as “a mystical theory deprived of 
all scientific basis,” and derides “the dogma of lifelong 
protection justified and proved by the experience of two 
important and eventful years.” 
Hr. Mitchell, member of the British House of Commons, 
was none too severe when he said : “ Vaccination has made 
murder legal. Vaccination does not protect against small- 
pox, but is followed by blindness and scrofula. Jennerism 
is the most colossal humbug which the human race has been 
burdened with by fraud and deceit.” 
Professor Hamernick put on the copestone in his over-true 
declaration, that “ vaccination is a disgrace to the practice 
of medicine.” 
The project imputed to Doctor Blackburn, during the civil 
war, to procure infected clothing, and sell it among the peo- 
ple of the Northern States, was justly stigmatized as a crime 
against civilization, against religion, against human nature 
itself. What better can be said concerning vaccination 
* Since writing this article, the Eclectic Medical Society of the State of New 
York, held its annual meeting at Syracuse. Vaccination had been announced 
as a topic of discussion. One speaker declined to consider it, asserting that 
it was a matter long since settled past question. Not willing to let it go by 
default, I obtained the floor, and debated it. Nobody attempted an answer ; 
but at the recess taken a little while after, a well-known practitioner came to 
me, and begged me to desist from expressing my opposition. He was appar- 
ently afraid that something or somebody would be hurt by such a discussion.