VACCINATION ABSURDITIES AND CONTRADICTIONS.

A PUBLIC ADDRESS

DELIVERED BY

W. R.HADWEN, M.D., J.P.

Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians, London ;

Member of the Royal College of Surgeons, England ;

Licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries, London ;

Gold Medallist in Medicine and in Surgery, etc. ;

ON THE 16th OCTOBER, 1902, IN THE MASONIC HALL, BIRMINGHAM,

BEING

A Reply to the Manifesto of the Imperial Vaccination League.

PRICE ONE PENNY.

6/6 per 100 (post free).

PUBLISHED BY THE NATIONAL ANTI-VACCINATION LEAGUE, 27 SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND, LONDON, W.C.

1912.

VACCINATION ABSURDITIES AND CONTRADICTIONS.

Transcript of Speech, delivered at Masonic Hall, Birmingham,

on October 16th, 1902, by

"W. R. HADWEN, M.D., J.P., L.R.C.P., M.R.C.S., L.S.A., of Gloucester.

THE Birmingham and District Branch of the National Anti-Vaccination League arranged a public meeting at the Masonic Hall, New Street, Birmingham, on the 16th October, 1902, to hear an address by Dr. Hadwen on the Vaccination Question in general, and the manifesto recently issued by the Imperial Vaccination League in particular.

In the unavoidable absence of the Mayor of West Bromwich, (Councillor J. H. Chesshire), General Phelps presided over a very large attendance. The Chairman opened with a few remarks on the recent slight epidemic of small-pox in Birmingham, pointing out that, including two certified as chicken-pox deaths, there had been 69 cases. Of these, three were doubtful, or 4.34 per cent. of the whole; 55 admittedly vaccinated (or 57, counting the two " chicken-pox " cases), a percentage of 82.6 ; and nine alleged unvaccinated, or 13.04 per cent. The deaths, as far as he could make out, numbered three, viz., two vaccinated too soon, and one vaccinated too late ; being vaccinated, he supposed they had died " mitigated deaths." (Laughter.) Of the nine alleged unvaccinated not one died. (Hear, hear.) There was something more than that—there were no less than 729 cases of chicken-pox. It was well known that chicken-pox was a disease which is never fatal, and Sir Thomas Watson and the Registrar General had explained that when a child was put down as dying from chicken-pox, they might be quite sure that it was a vaccinated child who really had small-pox. Several hundred cases of chicken-pox or mild small-pox had occurred, though doctors did not seem to be able to differentiate one from the other very clearly ; and there was always a risk that mild cases of vaccinated small-pox would be put down as chicken-pox, thus increasing the risk of infection. This would arise from genuine in­ability to believe that vaccinated persons could have small-pox. There were several remarkable lessons to be learnt from the epidemic. The first three cases were admittedly vaccinated, as is always the case now. This shows that the vaccinated are the danger to the community, and not the unvaccinated, as is usually supposed. The three fatal cases

4

were all vaccinated : this proves that vaccination does not mitigate the disease, as death is the worst possible result. Some cases having been vaccinated after recovery, it follows that smallpox is as inefficacious against cow-pox, as cow-pox has shown itself to be against small-pox. The three admittedly revaccinated cases demonstrate that re-vaccination cannot protect you for three years, ten days, or nine days. Then as to the pretence that the more the marks of vaccination the greater the protection, it turned out that the following was the number of marks noted, namely : with 7 marks 1 case ; with 5 marks 4 cases ; with 4, 13 ; with 3, 10 ; with 2, 10 ; with 1,1; not stated, 19. As the first (and only) case with 1 mark occurred thirty-third on the list, it would seem that 1 mark is more protective than 2, 3, 4, or 5 marks ; while 4 marks stand out as least protective of all. The analysis of the ages of the patients was also remarkable. There were 5 cases between 50 and 60 ; 7 over 40 ; 14 over 30 ; 19 over 20 ; 14 over 10 ; 5 over 5 ; 2 under 5 ; and 1 not stated. These results seemed to show that the more remote the vaccination the less liable people became to small-pox, while the more recent the vaccination, the greater the liability of adults. There must be now in Birmingham between 20,000 and 30,000 children who had not been cow-poxed ; and like the 60,000 or 70,000 similarly fortunate children in Leicester, they acted as a shield to save us from severe epidemics of small-pox. (Applause.)

Mr. J. W. Mahony submitted the following resolution :—" This meeting of inhabitants of Birmingham protests against the Vaccination Acts, which make it a penal offence to harbour a healthy child, calls upon the Government to restore freedom in medical matters to the people, and requests the Chairman to forward copies of this resolution to Mr. Balfour, Mr. Long, and the local Members of Parliament."

Mr. A. J. Pass seconded the motion, which was supported by Dr. Hadwen, who was received with enthusiasm, in the following address :—

DR. HADWEN'S ADDRESS.

General Phelps, ladies and gentlemen,—I am very pleased to hear the optimistic note which has been struck by the speakers who have preceded me, and of the splendid way in which apparently the know­ledge of the vaccination cause is going ahead in Birmingham. Whatever differences there may be amongst us as to the methods of imparting general education in this city, I am thankful at all events that upon this subject there is no difference of opinion ; no matter whether a man be a Tory, or a Radical, or a Socialist, or a Liberal, or any other peculiar colour ; whatever we are, we are all united on one common platform on this question, namely, that the whole Vaccination System is bad, and that we are never going to rest until we have got rid of it. (Applause.)

But still those who ought to know most about this subject are those who require the most education in regard to it. Those who profess to know most are those who, unfortunately, know least. (Hear, hear.) For instance, I notice in your Evening Despatch of a week or two ago, that owing to the scare which had taken place in regard to small-pox in Birmingham, the editor sent a reporter to the Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Hill, for the purpose of interviewing him upon the subject.

5

And the answer which he gave to the reporter as to how the small-pox scare was to be met, should small-pox become epidemic, was " Vac­cinate, re-vaccinate, and re-re-vaccinate." (Laughter.)

" What about sanitary precautions ? "

said the cautious reporter. " No use at all," said Dr. Hill. (Laughter.) " Small-pox defies them ! " said the Medical Officer of Health. " Of course, cleanliness is all right," said he, " but it won't keep away small-pox." I expect every slum-owner and every jerry-builder in Birmingham will be very thankful indeed that they have such a Medical Officer of Health to care for their interests. (Applause.) But the strange thing is this, that a little lower down, when the reporter asks, " Baths any use ? " Dr. Hill says, " Only in this way, that anything that tends to tone up the system is a help. The great thing is to do anything that will keep up the general health. That is the safeguard against all diseases." So that if you take baths, and if you keep up your general health, and if you thoroughly tone up your system, you will have, according to your Medical Officer of Health, a safeguard against all diseases. (Laughter and applause.) But Dr. Hill evidently fancied that he had gone a little too far, and suddenly pulls up and says that nothing will be quite effectual except vaccination. (Renewed laughter.) You have a most remarkable Medical Officer of Health, and I am certainly amazed that a gentleman holding such a position should so clearly give himself away, and give his credit away ; so completely nullify what he had said just before with regard to " Vaccinate, re-vaccinate, and re-re-vaccinate," and "absolutely own after all that if you keep up your general health you can have a safe­guard against all disease. (Applause.)

Now, if you are to keep up the general health, let me ask Dr. Hill this question : Can you produce a healthy body by inoculating into that body

A DEFINITE DISEASE

of the foulest description ? Allow me just to quote another doctor— I am fond of quoting members of my own profession—A friend of mine said to me yesterday, " What am I to do ? My medical man has said to me so-and-so and so-and-so, and I don't know how to con­tradict him." I said, " Fling another doctor at his head, that is the best way." (Laughter.) Whenever you find a doctor says one thing, it is not a difficult matter to find a doctor who says another. When doctors differ, we are asked, " Who shall decide ? " Well, I think the general public and common sense should decide, and upon this question you may take my word for it that the ordinary layman does know and can know quite as much about it as the medical man. (Applause.) And my experience is that the ordinary intelligent anti-vaccinator can dumbfound nine-tenths of the medical men on the subject. (Applause.)

Now I hold in my hand an extract from an address which was given by Dr. Killick Millard, the Medical Officer of Health for Leicester, at the recent Health Congress at Exeter, and this is what he says " It must never be forgotten that vaccinia," that is. cow-pox, which is

6

inoculated in the process of vaccination, " it must never be forgotten that vaccinia is after all a disease, and those of us whose profession it is to prevent disease should be

READY TO ABANDON IT

at the earliest possible moment consistent with the public safety. The control of disease by the substitution of one disease for another, whilst it may be expedient can never be regarded as an ideal method." Dr. Millard is getting on since he has been Medical Officer of Health at Leicester. (Laughter.) He has begun to learn something from the laymen, and apparently he is quite capable of teaching Dr. Hill, Medical Officer of Health for Birmingham, a lesson. And I am glad to see that they agree in this particular, that whereas Dr. Hill admits that the real safeguard against all disease is health, Dr. Millard tells us that inoculating cow-pox into a person is giving him a disease, and that that could never be regarded as an ideal method of treating another disease. (Applause). When medical men, and medical men in the position of Medical Officers of Health, begin to climb down in this direction, I certainly think one may echo the optimistic views which have been propounded by some speakers to-night, and we may really believe that we are beginning to get along by leaps and bounds.

Dr. Bond, of Gloucester, Honorary Secretary of the so-called Jenner Society—of course you know the Jenner Society is Dr. Bond, and Dr. Bond is the Jenner Society (Oh !)—lately published the fact that 11oo Medical Officers of Health were dead against anti-vaccination, and were entirely in favour of this extraordinary medical superstition. He claims from this fact that they had an

UNBIASSED MEDICAL OPINION.

But do you get an unbiassed medical opinion from these 1100 Medical Officers of Health ? Certainly not. The terms of their agreement, the terms of their appointment from headquarters, the Local Govern­ment Board, not only completely close their mouths, but prevent them from exercising their minds in full freedom on the subject. You know how it was a little time ago, when a man of the very highest attain­ments was appointed to the post of Medical Officer of Health at Penge, just outside London, selected unanimously by the Sanitary Committee out of a large number of competitors. When his name went to the Local Government Board, the Local Government Board refused to sanction the appointment, because he had written a scientific work detailing the question of vaccination, and showing that vaccination was a fraud. (Shame !) A Medical Officer of Health cannot hold, dare not hold, an opinion of his own on the subject, or the Local Government Board says, " Clear him out ! " The vaccination creed be­comes a question of his bread and butter. (Shame !) It is a shame ; I echo what you say ; it is a shame that a scientific man cannot exercise his opinion on this subject, that a scientific man dare not stand for what he believes to be right on this matter, without running the risk of being robbed of his situation, and of having a possibly brilliant future sacrificed at the behest of a miserable plea like this. And yet Dr.

7

Bond boasts that 1100 Medical Officers of Health have signed a testimonial in favour of vaccination ! (Applause.)

But there are other people besides Medical Officers of Health who require educating on this subject. There has been lately formed what is called

The Imperial Vaccination League,

and this Imperial Vaccination League has issued a manifesto, which I hold in my hand. It is headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Well, it is not the first time an Archbishop of Canterbury has headed a manifesto in favour of a particular nostrum. It was in the year 1715 that a certain old lady by the name of Joanna Stephens had a wonderful remedy for stone, and it gained such notoriety that Parliament was petitioned by the principal people of the land to buy the recipe for the benefit of the poor suffering public. The Archbishop of Canterbury was appointed trustee for the fund. Fellows of the Royal Society and scientific men of every description came forward to support the move­ment to get this wonderful recipe, and when at last the recipe was obtained, she said, " My recipe consists of a powder, a decoction, and a pill. The powder was calcined snails and egg shells ; the decoction was soap and water principally, with a few herbs ; and the pills consisted of snails, carrot seeds, burdock seeds, all burnt to a black­ness," and a few other delightful things of that description, which, when swallowed, were to effect a perfect cure. (Laughter.) And the Archbishop of Canterbury and the great scientific men and the Mem­bers of Parliament of that day paid the old lady £5,000 far that recipe. (Laughter.) They say a certain class of people and their money are soon parted (laughter), therefore I am not at all surprised to find another Archbishop of Canterbury heading the list of the Imperial Vaccination League in order to advertise this, a bigger fraud than that by which Joanna Stephens filched from the Government £5,000 for her benefit. (Applause.)

And Cardinal Vaughan, of the Roman Catholic Church, comes next, and

a Jewish Rabbi

brings up the rear (laughter), in spite of the fact that—I think it is in the fifth chapter of Leviticus and the second verse—it is most distinctly stated to the Jewish nation that the unclean animal they are not to touch under any consideration, and that if they touch it they would be held " unclean and guilty." But the Jewish Rabbi, having got into such company as this, appears to have forgotten all about the Mosaic ritual, and the care with which Moses inculcated these sanitary laws, and he goes along with the crowd to support this filthy practice of inoculating a filthy disease, contracted as the result of inhuman conditions, into the healthy bodies of the people of this country. (Applause.)

And then in between you have a number of doctors and parsons. The doctors are undoubtedly some of the first men in their profession. " Well," you will say, " that ought to go for something." It ought, but it does not always. (Hear, hear.) In the year 1800 there was another testimonial got up, a very similar one to the one I have

8

described. It was got up by Dr. Ring, and in this testimonial, which was subscribed to by nearly every leading medical man of that time, it was distinctly stated that vaccination was a perfect security against all smallpox for the future. Every leading medical man signed that. Where is there a medical man who would dare to sign such a petition as Ring's to-day ? and if medical men could make a mistake in the past,

Medical men can make a mistake in the present.

' It is not very many years ago that the whole medical profession went in for blood-letting. It was the only way in which people could be cured, they said. Men would be brought in to a hospital, two or three pints of blood would be taken from them ; and this was repeated until they were nearly brought down to death's door, and in spite of the statement of Moses, many a long century before, that blood was the life of the body, they went on drawing it away, and the whole profession unanimously believed in the creed.

It is not very many years ago that the whole medical profession believed with Jenner that one vaccination and one mark would pro­tect a person for a lifetime. He said in his petition to Parliament— " The extraordinary character of my remedy is this : that a person once vaccinated is for ever after protected against smallpox." But now the Medical Officer for Birmingham cries " vaccination, re-vac­cination, and re-re-vaccination." (Laughter.)

It is only a few years ago that every medical man believed and declared that no injurious results could arise from vaccination. The Local Government Board denounced as ignorant fanatics anybody who dared to say such a thing as that the inoculation of the foul disease of syphilis could take place with vaccine lymph. It was an unheard of thing ; it was a libel on the medical profession, so much so, that one medical man by the name of Dr. Cory said, " I consider the thing such a lie, that I will take and vaccinate myself with syphilitic lymph, for I know well enough that no injury can result." And he did.

An injury did result.

and Dr. Cory lived to discover what a terrible deed he had done. He is dead now. If it had anything to do with his death I cannot say, but I do know this, that Government have given Mrs. Cory a pension on the ground that her husband lost his life in a scientific experiment. The whole medical profession had to give up the theory after that, that syphilis could not be conveyed in vaccine lymph. So that once again the medical profession had to acknowledge that the unanimity of the unanimous was a will o' the wisp. (Applause).

Why, my friends, it is not above sixty years ago that a young man tramped the streets of London in order to get his life insured, and he went to one Insurance Office after another, and he could not find a solitary doctor who would take the risk of insuring his life because he was a teetotaller. (Laughter). That young man said, "Well then, I will start an Insurance Society of my own. If I cannot live without drink according to these doctors, the sooner I insure my life and get all straight for those that belong to me before I go to the next world,

9

the better it will be for everybody concerned. And he started an Insurance Society of his own, and a few years ago he took the chair at the jubilee meeting of the United Kingdom Temperance and General Provident Institution—(applause)—a clear living proof of the fact that the unanimity of the medical profession is not always to be trusted. (Applause). Now, it is

NOT A QUESTION OF GREAT NAMES

attached to a circular. The question is : What do the people who possess those names know of the subject ? (Hear, hear). When one finds an extraordinary manifesto of this description, as brimfull of errors as an egg is full of meat, one wonders how on earth any scien­tific man could ever have signed his name to such a document. But vac­cination is a fashion, vaccination is a professional fad ; every doctor for the time being is expected to believe it, and is trained to believe it, and I suppose he will believe it for a certain time until some of the younger ones begin to rise up and see the folly of it, and then the whole thing will tumble down like a house of cards. It has become perhaps more popular among the medical profession recently because vaccination and re-vaccination can be carried out wholesale at the public expense. And although just before the orders issued by the Local Government Board after the passing of the 1898 Act, the whole medical profession was beginning to bow at our feet and say that really they had such fearful opposition right and left that it did not pay them to go on with it, and they were ready to give it up, now we find them saying—" Oh ! dear no, the whole medical profession is more strongly in favour of vaccination than ever." (Laughter and applause).

The Public Vaccinators of the Borough of Hackney have just claimed for

VACCINATION FEES

during the last twelve months no less than £4,839—(shame)—and the Public Vaccinator of Marylebone has sent in a bill for three months for £2,000. You cannot be surprised if they all believe in it. (Laughter). There was one medical gentleman down in the west country who was so delighted with the new rules issued by the Local Government Board that he called all his family around him ; he vaccinated his boy, and he vaccinated himself, and he vaccinated his wife, and he vacci­nated all his children ; and he sent in a bill to the Guardians at seven-and-six a head. (Laughter). He could have taken them into the surgery, where, according to the rules, the fee would have been two-and-six a head. But, oh, no ! it was all done in the drawing-room, " at the patients' residence," at seven-and-six each, and the Guardians had to pay it. (Laughter).

You cannot be surprised at the Medical Profession believing in vac­cination, because it has become lately

A MAGNIFICENT ENDOWMENT,

and if there is one thing in the world that wants disestablishing and disendowing, there is no doubt about it, it is this miserable practice.

10

(Cheers). And we must take good care to let the public realize the fact, as they must realize it shortly, that it is not a mere medical question, it is not a mere question for the father and the mother, but it is a question of the ratepayers' pocket. (Applause).

Now what these gentlemen of the Imperial Vaccination League are so anxious to impress on the British public is this : that Germany has got rid of smallpox, and Germany having got rid of smallpox, we should follow their example. Why they should want to go all the way to Germany for their evidence, seeing that we have had one hundred years of vaccination in our own country, where sufficiently conclusive material ought to be found, is at first sight rather puzzling to any ordinary enquirer.

Now I am as anxious as these gentlemen are that we should follow

THE EXAMPLE OF GERMANY

in relation to smallpox, although I am not a great advocate of every­thing that is made in Germany. (Laughter). I think we can manage this business quite as well in this country as they can there, and why Germany should be held up, as it is right from the beginning of this manifesto to the end, as the great model for England to follow, I cannot for the life of me conceive. But we will see what their reasons are. The fairy tale runs as follows :—" That we desire to see this country protected as thoroughly against epidemic smallpox as Germany is," and with this in view, the Imperial Vaccination League has been formed, with the Duke of Fife as its President, " to promote the study of the laws regulating vaccination, and to consider whether the vacci­nation law itself or its administration admits of improvement." Now what they go on to tell us is this : that they have got

NO SMALLPOX IN GERMANY,

and they distinctly and absolutely declare that this is the result of the Vaccination Act which was passed in Germany in the year 1874. Why they want to start with the year 1874 is not very difficult to discover. There is one question they have not touched upon ; there is one point these parsons and doctors have not attempted to prove. It is this : that vaccination has been better carried out since the Act of 1874 was passed than it was carried out before. When they can prove that it has been better carried out since then than it was before, they will have some just and logical ground for presenting their creed to the British public. (Hear, hear.)

But now look here :—Was the compulsory Vaccination Act of our Teutonic neighbours not passed until the year 1874 ? No. The great compulsory Vaccination Acts of Prussia were passed in 1834 and 1835. In 1834 the Military Act was passed. In 1835 an Act was passed, so rigid, that every child in the Kingdom had to be vaccinated ; had to be re-vaccinated when he commenced his public school life ; in going from college to college he had to show a certificate not more than two years old. In addition to that

EVERY HEALTHY MALE

when he entered the army had to be re-vaccinated again, and so

11

thorough was it that he had to have ten insertions in each arm, and if he dared to say he would not have it done, the Act said that he was to be held down and vaccinated by force. Well, surely that was good enough. That was the years 1834-5, and that was carried out right through the long, long years that followed. No woman even could get married unless she presented a certificate of vaccination.

In the year 1871-2 there came the great epidemic of smallpox. And what occurred ? During that period, the period of 1871-2, no less than 124,948 of their vaccinated and re-vaccinated citizens died. " Ah ! " says the Imperial Vaccination League, " ah ! " cry the Arch­bishop of Canterbury, Cardinal Vaughan and the Jewish Rabbi and the doctors and parsons in chorus, " we must cut out all that 1871 to 1872 ; we must blot out all the 37 years previously ; we will begin afresh with 1874." (Laughter). With stentorian voices they cry: " There has not been any smallpox since 1874, and it is the 1874 Vaccination Act of Germany that has done it." (Laughter). It must be understood that the German Act of 1874 practically embraced the laws of Prussia under the title of the laws of the new United German Empire. (Hear, hear).

But there is another little item they have forgotten, and that is this, that in the year 1873—that is the year before the 1874 Act was passed —there were

ONLY 35 CASES OF SMALLPOX

to 100,000 inhabitants in the whole of the German Empire, whereas the year before there were 262 to every 100,000. In the year 1874 it had actually fallen down to nine. In the year 1875 it dropped down to three, so that, seeing the Act was only passed in 1874, and it did not come into operation until 1875, and it took two years after that to get it into operation ; why ! the smallpox had all gone before the Act came into operation at all. (Applause). I suppose the smallpox smelt the Vaccination Act coming, and like the Midianites, when Gideon's army came up with their pitchers and their lanterns, it fled at the bare sight of the light of the Parliamentary pitcher—the coming Vaccination Act had frightened the wits out of it. (Laughter). I cannot see how anyone can suppose that this wonderful 1874 Act drove the smallpox away, seeing that smallpox had practically dis­appeared before the Vaccination Act came in at all.

But, why is it there has been no smallpox since ? I will tell you why. Take

Berlin, the principal city

of the German Empire. Why, in Berlin there was scarcely a house in the whole city that had not got its own privy in the back yard, open cess-pools were common over the whole place. The barracks for the soldiers were nothing more nor less than filthy dens. The sewage of the city was emptied into the river Spree. What did the Germans do when they received the money as the indemnity from the French nation that they had conquered ? They took that money and devoted it to sanitary improvements ; they brought good water into their cities, they adopted a new drainage system, and they built model barracks for their soldiers. They got rid of the miserable dens that infected

12

their principal cities, and, what was the consequence ? Away went the smallpox, flying like the Philistines before the children of Israel. And hence it is that sanitation has done for Germany what thirty-seven years of compulsory vaccination could not accomplish. (Applause). Ever since the year 1871, right on to the year 1888, German;/ spent no less than half a million of money every year in Berlin alone for sanitary improvements, and yet that which is clearly the result of sanitation, that which is clearly proved to be the result of Germany's progressive sanitary laws, is claimed by the Imperial Vaccination League for vac­cination, although the historical fads are dead against their absurd conclusion.

A still further proof is this, that whereas in 1871-2 and the long years previously, when they had vaccination without sanitation, the

GENERAL DEATH-RATE OF THE COUNTRY

was 29 per thousand, since they have introduced their sanitary laws, which have practically driven smallpox out of the country, that general death-rate has been reduced from 29 per thousand to 24 per thousand, thus showing, where you have got a general betterment of the health of the people, the worst zymotic diseases cannot find a footing. (Applause). Your Medical Officer of Health says : " No use whatever in sanitary precautions, smallpox defies them." (Laughter). Why even in Austria they call it " the beggars' disease."

Look at London during the recent epidemic there. Where has your smallpox broken out ? Has it broken out in the West End of London where the general death-rate is several percentages lower than it is in the East ? Has it broken out in the well-ventilated, well-sanitated, uncrowded parts of the city ? No. It has broken out in the slums and dens of the East End. It has broken out in the filthy hovels where the sweater lives and "where the horrible jerry-built houses lie, where the people live in their damp, dark cellars, and where the workmen are crowded together in small rooms, getting their miserable pittance for their every-day work. That is where the smallpox has broken out, that is where it has lurked, where it has flourished, where it always finds a home. (Applause).

But though these conditions form the pabulum for the smallpox fiend to feed upon, still there is another point which this Imperial Vaccination League has entirely forgotten. They open their manifesto by trying to frighten the British public in regard to this awful epidemic which has just taken place. " It has cost

MORE THAN I5OO LIVES,"

they say, and 7,500 other people have been more or less seriously ill, and perhaps of those a large proportion remain permanently disfigured, and it has cost over half a million of money." Now that comes to a rate of 331 per million, this " awful epidemic." If you look back from the year 1871 to the year 1885—that is when the vaccination default was only about 6 per cent., practically everybody vaccinated— there were during those fifteen years no fewer than six epidemics of smallpox greater than this little epidemic that has just occurred in London. That was, mind you, when everybody was vaccinated. Now,

13

when we come to the last fifteen years, namely, from 1886 to 1900, when the vaccination default had risen to about 28 per cent., what do we find ? That during the whole of those fifteen years there has been practically no smallpox at all. We now have an epidemic of small­pox. Why ? Because we have had the 1898 Act passed, and vast numbers of the people living in the slums and dens, who never read the newspaper and know nothing about new Acts of Parliament, get

A DOMICILIARY VISIT

from the Public Vaccinator, for he has now, under the new Act, to visit the house. " I have come to vaccinate your child," he says. ' Oh, but I don't want him vaccinated," replies the parent. " If you don't you will be summoned," the parent is told. And what are these poor creatures to do ? How can they pay their fine ? And here they are, tyrannised and treated in this way, whilst the Vaccination Officer and the Public Vaccinator visit them, and threaten them, until at last they give in. (Shame !) The consequence is, that since the passing of that Act, numbers of these poor people have been vaccinated who were not vaccinated before, vaccinated, too, with this vile concoction that Dr. Copeman has introduced, namely, smallpox itself inoculated into monkeys, and then transferred to calves, and then into human beings. (Shame !) And so, since the Act of 1898, vaccination has in­creased and smallpox has been spreading, and you have got your epidemic in London as the result of it. (Applause.) It is always the case : the more vaccination, the more smallpox ; the less vaccination, the less smallpox. Vaccination without sanitation, smallpox goes on ; little vaccination, but plenty of sanitation, and smallpox dis­appears.

But now we are told by this Imperial Vaccination League, " We admit, with much satisfaction, that the clauses of the 1898 Act, which allow the conscientious objector to expose his children to the risk of taking smallpox in the presence of infection has worked on the whole

LESS DISASTROUSLY THAN WAS EXPECTED."

(Laughter.) Yes, the whole population was to have been decimated. We were going to have a lot of little kegs of gunpowder all over the United Kingdom. It was going to light such a bonfire ! All England would go bang ! God only knows where the smallpox was going to end ! (Loud laughter.) But now, " with much satisfaction "—I have no doubt—(laughter)—they discover that " it has worked on the whole less disastrously than was expected." (Laughter.) There has only been a small outbreak after all, and the funny part of it is that nearly everybody who was attacked—more than two-thirds of them, so far as we can gather from the published statistics—were vaccinated persons. (Laughter and applause.)

But you know we have not been able to get those statistics, and we have not been able to check those statistics. (Shame !) It is true that for a certain time the Metropolitan Asylums Board published in the papers so many vaccinated and so many not, and in spite of all their jiggery pokery we still found that the vaccinated were suffering and dying at the rate of about two-thirds more than the unvaccinated, until

14

at last the vaccination officials seemed to get alarmed. They said that publishing statistics in this way was making people believe that really those who were vaccinated suffered from smallpox more than those who were not. (Laughter.) They feared that the ignorant jack­asses of the public would believe such a thing. They ought to remember that

THE WORD VACCINATION----

well, it did not always mean vaccination ; that there were different ways of interpreting that blessed word. (Laughter.) The public were not educated up to the niceties, and the delicate variations of vaccination polemics, so they ought not to be trusted with statistics, even though compiled with all the care and sophistry known to medical vaccination officialdom. There were, for instance, a certain number of marks they must have ; there was the shape of the marks, you know ; all this has to be taken into consideration, and all this would take any number of " vaccinated " people out of the count. (Laughter), So that, although you have paid your 5/- or your 10/6 to be vaccinated, and told that you are going to be protected for ever upon the strength of the word of the great Jenner himself, yet, when you get smallpox, that is quite another matter : then there was something wrong with the vaccination, and the ignorant public did not understand the reason why. (Laughter.) At last the order went forth, " No more statistics to be published," and they stopped the whole thing dead in the middle, and we know nothing about it since. (Shame !)

It was just in the middle of this statistical juggling business that the National Anti-Vaccination League sent a letter down to the Metro­politan Asylums Board. We claimed the right of the Act of Parliament, which said that anyone, by the payment of a certain sum, should be permitted

TO SEARCH THE BOOKS

of the Sanitary Authority and see who had smallpox, and their alleged vaccinated condition. Well, we sent down our messenger with the requisite amount of money for the purpose of examining the books. "You cannot come," said the doctor to the messenger; "before you can examine these books you must be vaccinated." (Oh and laughter.) They thought that would put a dead stopper to the emissary of the National Anti-Vaccination League. And the funny part of it is this. In the report of the proceedings of the Metropolitan Asylums Board on January 25th, 1902, we read as follows.: " Dealing with the question of proposed compulsory vaccination of all visitors to smallpox patients, the Hospital Committee reported that although every visitor to a patient was strongly pressed to be vaccinated, they did not think it possible to make vaccination a condition of their being allowed to enter the hospital." (Laughter.) So that the visitors to the Smallpox Hospital might go in and see their relatives without being vaccinated, but the messenger from the National Anti-Vaccination League ! not a bit of it !

" YOU SHALL NOT SEE OUR REGISTERS

unless you allow us to vaccinate you." (Laughter.)

15

But we claimed the right of the Act of Parliament that a Sanitary Authority must show their books. " Oh," replied the Medical Officer of the Metropolitan Asylums Board, " we are not a Sanitary Authority." (Laughter). And then, being afraid lest particular pressure might be brought to bear upon them, and he would get into a mess after all, he said : " But it is no use your looking at the books, even if you did, because the register kept by the Registrar, and the statement kept by myself do not tally." He " never made up his books until the patient— well, until the case—was completed." (Laughter). And this is the kind of thing we have had to submit to. This is the way the statistics are worked. " When the cases are completed," if you please. Dead men tell no tales. (Applause).

And how are the statistics worked according to their own showing ? The person who was vaccinated was only called vaccinated if they could see the marks. If, however, he was said to have been vaccinated, but there was not a clear and visible sign of the operation, he was put down in the " doubtful " list.

Now there are three kinds of smallpox. There is the discrete smallpox, confluent smallpox, and malignant smallpox. And statistics show this : That the discrete smallpox patients practically always recover. It does not matter if they are vaccinated or not, they almost invariably recover if they are treated properly. In the case of malignant smallpox, vaccinated or unvaccinated, the vast majority die. It is very rarely they recover. The battle of life and death wages in the confluent class. Now, confluent smallpox is where the pustules run together, and the consequence is that the vaccination marks are often covered so that you cannot see them. They are the cases which would probably prove fatal unless very

GREAT CARE AND PROPER TREATMENT

are resorted to. If, therefore, the doctor cannot see the marks he will " wait until the case is completed." If the patient gets well and the marks begin to appear, he may perhaps put it down as a vaccinated case. But if the patient does not get well and dies, then, of course, he dies "unvaccinated." (Laughter). Not because he had not been vaccinated, but because he had had confluent smallpox. And hence it is that the " unvaccinated " list is swollen by the worst cases, and the death-rate of the unvaccinated is raised abnormally high. (Applause.) Even a greater scandal has been exposed by Mr. Bernard Shaw, mem­ber of St. Pancras Borough Council, in the Times of August l0th. " Case after case," he says, " of a disease diagnosed as smallpox has been sent to the hospital ships during the late epidemic ; but when­ever the authorities at the wharf found marks of recent re-vaccination on the patient the case was promptly sent back as one of general vaccinia." (Shame).

But just a word or two more about the great bogey of the present day, viz., that you must be re-vaccinated. Vaccination is no use. You must be re-vaccinated. Now let me put this before you. I want to look at the science of this thing. They tell us that vaccination is a scientific creed, and they have been trying for over a hundred years to

16

find a scientific basis for vaccination, and they have never found it yet. It began as a superstition of the Gloucestershire dairy-maids, and there is about as much science in it as there is in the heads of the -old women of Gloucestershire who first thought of it. (Laughter). The theory in regard to it is this : That cowpox is smallpox of the cow. Nobody has ever proved it. But never mind ; that theory is good enough. " Cowpox is smallpox of the cow ! " When a person has had smallpox once he is protected against smallpox a second time. So runs the argument. And therefore, as cowpox is smallpox, and when you have had smallpox once you cannot have smallpox again, so when you have been cowpoxed you cannot take smallpox. (Laughter.) That is the theory. Now this is

HOW IT WORKS OUT IN PRACTICE.

" When you have been cowpoxed once you are never safe," says the doctor, " until you have been cowpoxed over again." (Laughter.) But seeing that, having been cowpoxed once—that is, smallpoxed—you cannot have smallpox again (because you have had it already), it is a most extraordinary thing that you can go on cowpoxing a person almost as often as ever you like ; and as cowpox—which is small­pox—cannot protect you against a second inoculation of cowpox, it passes my comprehension how on earth it is going to protect you against smallpox at all. (Laughter and applause). Dr. Leonard Dobson, at the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society, on December 10th. said :—" He knew of one child who had been successfully vaccinated three times in four months. He himself after being •successfully vaccinated with Government lymph, accidently inoculated his finger with lymph from another source and a good vesicle resulted." What about protection ? and what about the scientific theory after that ?

And the funny part is this : Although cowpox had been declared for a century to be smallpox of the cow, and although we had been repeatedly [t]old that when you put, so to speak, smallpox into the cow at one end, it came out cowpox at the other, yet it had never yet been supported by an atom of scientific proof. So the Royal Commission, after seven years of careful debating upon the subject, decided to put the whole thing upon a scientific basis, and show once for all that cowpox really was smallpox. And this is how they did it : This Royal Commission, mind you, was composed of great and learned men of the same calibre as you find signing the marvellous manifesto of the Imperial Vaccination League, the leading medical men of the day, and this is how they settled the scientific aspect—the

SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF VACCINATION.

They say, " Taking all the various facts into consideration, we seem led " —it is a beautiful and most reassuring way of putting it—" to the pro­visional conclusion "—not an absolute one, of course—" that under certain conditions the tisuses of the cow are able to transform smallpox into vaccine, that these conditions may be such "—how very cautious these Royal Commissioners are—" as to lead to the transformation

17

being sudden and complete. But under certain other conditions "—they

do not tell us what they are, they are quite above that sort of thing__

" the transformation may be gradual and incomplete, and that under certain other conditions, and these " they say " seem most commonly to obtain, transformation into vaccine does not take place at all. (Laughter). But what the above conditions are has not as yet been clearly made out. (Continued laughter). It has been suggested. "— mark you, this is a suggestion—" that one condition favourable to the transformation is the extreme youth of the subject. To effect the change the animal should be a calf of not more than three or four months, but this is not definitely proved." (Great laughter). That is the scientific basis of vaccination after seven years' consideration by the great leaders of the medical profession appointed by a British Parliament. And if you do not feel thoroughly ashamed of the whole business, all I can say is, that I, as a medical man, do. (Loud applause).

But with regard to this re-vaccination, what are its practical results ? You all know the arguments with regard to the army. You know how Brigadier-Surgeon Nash appeared before the Royal Commission, and there presented 3,953 cases of re-vaccinated soldiers who had taken smallpox, and 391 of them died—yes, "mitigated deaths." (Laughter). We had an

OLD SOLDIER IN GLOUCESTER

who had been vaccinated no less than seven times, and even then he had the impudence to catch smallpox during the epidemic of 1896. (Laughter). Your dear old friend here, Dr. Hill, says _: " I have been vaccinated six times." (Laughter). And yet Jenner declared being vaccinated once was enough to last you a lifetime. Jenner said, in regard to re-vaccination, " You have no right to press it." He wrote to one of his medical friends, " Re-vaccination will rob my discovery of half its virtues." (Laughter). Remember this, my friends, this Vaccination Act, that has tyrannised over the fathers, that has worried the mothers, that has killed the children for the last half century, was based upon that bare-faced statement that one vaccination would protect a person for a lifetime, and for which statement £30,000 was paid to the impu­dent charlatan who claimed it as his discovery, and now, according to your own Medical Officer of Health, according to these very people, these signatories of the Imperial Vaccination League whose manifesto I hold in my hand, it is declared that the whole of Jenner's assumption has turned out to be a deception and a lie. I say to the law makers and their dupes, " Confess that that Act has been based upon a fraud, and give us back the liberties that you have filched away from us." (Applause).

But now another word or two more. They say here, " The League will also consider why the entire supply of glycerinated calf lymph should not be

GUARANTEED AND REGULATED

by some public authority." Most decidedly. (Hear, hear). I thoroughly agree with it. Let us have a guarantee by all means.

18

(Laughter). We have been trying to get that for the last 25 years, but they have never given it yet.

I remember when I first took up this question—it is now 21 years ago—I had never thought of the question before, but when my first little baby was born to me, a chubby little darling, and I held in my hand the blue paper from the Registrar to have it vaccinated, I thought to myself, " Well, what does this mean ? " I had been accustomed to look at things straight in the face before accepting them, but I had never before entered into the question of vaccination. When, however, I had a child of my own, then it was it began to come home to me, and I asked myself the question, " Shall I have this done or shall I not ? " My wife, who was as anxious about it as I was, went round to some friends who had had their children vaccinated, and some terrible stories were heard in our village home. I then began to ask some medical friends about the matter. To my intense amaze­ment there was not a solitary medical man I came across who knew anything about it, or could give me any rational or scientific reason for the practice. It was simply the law, and it had to be done. I wrote to the Public Vaccinator and I said, " Will you give me a guarantee in accordance with the spirit of the Act of Parliament, first of all, that if my child be vaccinated it shall never have smallpox, and in the second place that it shall be vaccinated with lymph from which no injurious results will accrue." . He wrote back and told me---" I am sorry to say I

CANNOT GIVE A GUARANTEE

on either point," and I said, " Then I will not have it done." (Loud applause). I was the first man in the county of Somerset who had ever stood against these Acts, and they summoned me to the Axbridge Police Court, and the Chairman of the Bench, a military man, said, " I am amazed at a man of your intelligence standing out against the Vaccination Act." I said, " You may be, but it is my very intelli­gence that refuses to allow me to submit to it. I stand out against these Acts upon the ground of principle. It is to protect my child, and I mean to protect it." " But," he said, " you are setting yourself against the whole of the medical profession. Do you mean to say that you are right, and everybody else is wrong ? " I said, " Yes, sir, I do." (Laughter and cheers). And I should be a fool if I said any­thing else. He held up his hands in sheer amazement. He continued to talk to me, and I continued to talk to him. (Laughter). He said, " Well, you are the cheekiest fellow I ever met in all my life—20/- and costs." (Cries of shame). And I paid it. They summoned me for that little girl four times—(shame)—and for my two other children I was summoned, and I paid fines three times each, and then they thought they would let me alone, for they found it began to create a sensation and stir throughout the county, and large numbers were beginning to follow my example. In fact a few years ago I noticed a Medical Officer of Health in the principal town in the county wrote to the Guardians and begged them to give him a higher fee because he said he had only had two people to vaccinate throughout the whole of the year. (Applause).

19

We have been asking for this guarantee, and they have been pro­fessing to give us the guarantee which the Imperial Vaccination League asks for all this time. Why, they had a special man at the Local Government Board, paid him several hundreds a year

TO EXAMINE EVERY SAMPLE OF LYMPH

that came before them. The lymph was passed under a microscope by this gentleman, and was supposed to be guaranteed pure. When he came before the Royal Commission, that smart friend of ours, Sir William Collins, asked, " As a matter of fact, have you ever guaranteed any lymph as pure ? " and he had to answer " No." Dr. Collins further asked, " Can you, by the finest miscroscopic test, discover pure from impure lymph ? " and he had to say " No." Yet this lymph had been passing to the public as pure for all these long years, professedly guaranteed by a man paid a handsome salary to pass the slides under a microscope, and make nothing but downright fools of the public and of himself. (Laughter and cheers.) And at last, after swearing, as the Local Government Board did, that this lymph could be implicitly relied upon, they had to invent another article which would be pure and so brought out a glycerinated calf lymph, which was simply the same filth diluted with glycerine and water. The introduction of glycerinated calf lymph as something you could depend upon was clear evidence that all the lymph that they had previously guaranteed was stuff that could not be depended upon. (Applause.) And yet all these long years before, men and women had been summoned, had been persecuted, fined, distrained upon and imprisoned, because they stood for their rights against the inoculation of a filthy disease, and the terrible risks that they had to run. All that time the Local Govern­ment Board were telling them, there were no risks whatever, and at last they had to wake up and acknowledge there were risks ; and these risks were acknowledged by the fact that they had to introduce some­thing fresh, which they declared would possess no risks at all. The other day our Parliamentary leader, Mr. Thomas Bayley, rose in the House of Commons and asked Mr. Walter Long a straight question—

" Can you guarantee

this glycerinated calf lymph now? " and he had to answer, "No." (Shame !) And still you are fined, and still your goods are distrained upon, and still you are imprisoned, unless you submit to this foul process.

It is true you can have your exemption certificate, you can go like a felon to a Police Court—a respectable man or woman, who perhaps has never entered such a place before—to a couple of magis­trates, in order to inform those magistrates that you have a conscience, and perhaps be insulted in the most degrading manner. (Applause.) This is the kind of thing that respectable men, respectable women, aye, the very salt of the earth, have to submit to. It is not the drunkards, it is not the degraded people of Society, it is not the low, outcast classes, who care for neither wife nor child, that are in the anti-vaccination ranks. No ; the anti-vaccinationists are thinking

20

men and thinking women ; they are men who love their homes, who love their children, and take a pride in their surroundings. They are those who recognise health as a priceless virtue, and shudder at the thought of inoculating a foul cattle disease into the life-blood of the offspring that they love. (Applause.) And I say it is a foul and wicked thing to bring men like this into the Police Court and to insult them as they are insulted, and treated as they have been treated, from the magisterial bench. (Loud applause.)

But this Imperial Vaccination League says that they wish in future to see that the Vaccination Act is carried out according to its spirit and letter. They do not wish the conscientious objector clause to be done away with. They know they dare not try it on, but they wish to see the clause worked in strict conformity with the spirit and the letter of the law. And so do we. (Hear, hear.) Their idea, however, of the spirit and the letter of the law no doubt is one thing ; what we mean about it is another. When this comes up in the House of Commons next year, and it will come, then we shall want to know whether these men, these jackanapes, are to sit on the bench and insult respectable people, as they have been insulted, and we will see whether they will not obey, not only the letter, but the spirit of the law, and that such

MAGISTERIAL PRIGS

are taught—aye, taught—to behave as gentlemen. (Cheers.)

Lastly, they tell us that the League desires to see efficient vaccination defined under the Act of 1903, and that all certificates of vaccination should show if the vaccination has been efficient or not. We want the same thing. (Hear, hear.) It is wonderful how much we are in accord with the Imperial Vaccination League. (Laughter.) Oh ! if only we could get it; if only we could get that guarantee, and a good hundred pounds at the back of it for compensation when the guarantee was broken ! That is the thing. We have had 50 children every year registered by medical men as having died as the result of vaccination, and there has never been a doctor brought up for manslaughter. Let's have a guarantee ; let's have a guarantee, and then we will see whether the medical men who are robbing us of our children in this way shall pay for it or not. (Applause.)

We are also agreed that we shall have a definition of what efficient vaccination is. Oh, yes, most decidedly ! " You understand," wrote a medical writer recently, " successful vaccination does not mean efficient vaccination." Certainly, we are quite aware of that (laughter), and the funny part of it is you can never tell whether successful vac­cination is efficient until the person gets smallpox ; then you discover it. (Renewed laughter.) " Efficient vaccination ! " Well, what is it to be ? Here is a doctor who recently wrote in the Hospital, " What is efficient vaccination ? " The Hospital says, " The Government four-mark standard is no answer." We have been told for years and years that that is just what efficient vaccination consisted of, namely, four good marks ; even if they took smallpox afterwards, it was never­theless " Efficient vaccination_!" (Laughter.) Now one in the leading

21

medical papers comes forward and says it is not efficient vaccination at all, and we are to have this

EFFICIENT VACCINATION DEFINED.

And I suppose they won't be happy till they get it. (Laughter.) It only shows the sweet innocence of this Imperial Vaccination League. They really don't know what they are talking about. " Efficient vaccination—four marks." " No," says the Government. Whenever a well marked vaccinated person takes smallpox, they say, " But those marks were not good." Dr. Gayton, for instance, told the Royal Commission he did not consider any person properly vaccinated unless he had got four good marks of a very definite character. Each in­dividual scar must answer his dramatic description ; but when he came to be cross-examined, although he had asserted that a good " area " was a quality of value, yet he thought you might have a good scar which was " exceedingly minute." But if he had one good mark and three imperfect ones, he actually admitted he should be inclined to lump them together and call them two good ones ; but yet when he had one good one and three imperfect ones, he generally in his statistics ignored the three and only registered the one. Now what are you to do with a scientific man and a scientific system like that ? (Laughter.) " But," says the Local Government Board, " four good marks re­present efficient vaccination, and we will allow no bonus unless this rule is complied with." Well, now, here is the strange part. We had 587 men in connection with the Metropolitan Asylums Board vaccinated the other day. Five hundred and eighty-seven men all vaccinated by the Medical Officer of the Department. All vaccinated " properly " ; so properly that actually 28 per cent, of them were laid up with illness, and they had to compensate the employers, to compensate the men, and give every man-jack of them a five shilling bonus to be done at all. And it has cost at the end of it over £1000 for this handful of men—35/- a head. And it turned out that, after all said and done, they have only been vaccinated in two places ! (Laughter.) Why this is, one does not know. You cannot get efficient vaccination unless you have been marked in four places, and yet the medical official of the Metropolitan Asylums Board itself vaccinated 587 men at the public expense with

ONLY TWO MARKS !

The Imperial Vaccination League might well ask that efficient vacci­nation should be defined. Will they ever get it ? We have had one mark, two, three, and four. In Germany they had had twenty marks for thirty-seven years ; and then had the biggest pandemic ever known in the history of mankind. The Hospital for December 20th last significantly remarks : " The criteria of efficiency are very unsatis­factory. It may indeed be doubted whether we know what is the exact relationship between the vesicle and the disease." If such is the crass ignorance in high quarters after 100 years' experience, is it not time, I ask, that all the abominable tyranny in connection with this " very unsatisfactory " question was put a stop to ? (Cheers.) And yet there is your friend, your Medical Officer of Health for Birmingham,

22

saying that he has been vaccinated six times, and now he says, " I am immune." (Laughter.) Well, let's hope he may be, but he can't tell until he gets into the midst of a smallpox outbreak—and perhaps get it after all.

And now in conclusion I will only mention one thing more, and that is that the League say they are going to have lectures, literature, parish lectures and meetings, &c., for the instruction of the public. When the Jenner Society was started, Dr. Bond said the same thing. He said the Jenner Society was formed specially for the instruction and the education of working men. And we waited, and waited, and waited to get these working men educated and instructed ; we were all going in a body to learn ourselves. (Laughter.) I waited so anxiously for that opportunity, but through all these long years he has never attempted to get a public meeting. One day we twitted him with it, and we asked him why it was he did not have a public meeting. He wrote a letter to the press in reply, and said he knew too well the tactics of the anti-vaccinators at such meetings. (Laughter.) I asked him in reply how he could possibly tell what the tactics of the anti-vaccinators would be at a pro-vaccinators' meeting, seeing that a pro-vaccinators' meeting had never yet been held. (More laughter.) He was evidently afraid of these " tactics," and now what do we find ? Again once more,

LITERATURE WILL BE CIRCULATED,

parish meetings will be held, lectures will be delivered. (A voice, " No dates.") No, you must not expect scientific men to be too precise as to details. (Cheers.)

Mr. Swan, of Liverpool, wrote to the Secretary the other day and said, " Will you be prepared to have a debate upon this subject ? If the Imperial Vaccination League will have a public debate, we will provide either lay or medical men to debate it." A letter came back from the Secretary to say he had forwarded it to the Honorary Secretary. And then the Honorary Secretary, Mrs. Garrett Anderson, wrote in due course and said, " No, the Imperial Vaccination League do not intend to have debates, and if you will notice," she said, " in the manifesto " (signed by all these men who ought not to be afraid of their opinions) " not a word is stated about debates." (Much laughter.)

And the circular winds up with the usual appeal for funds, because they say an office is to be kept ,and a Secretary is to be provided, and they must have the needful for the purpose. But surely the public will want to know what they are paying for ? For if that is all they can produce for their office and their Secretary the sooner they shut up shop the better. We have heard nothing about them since. (Laughter.) Like the Jenner Society, the Imperial' Vaccination League seems to be snuffed out already. Ever since that circular was issued they appear to have carefully kept in the background ; probably they are only getting enough to pay the Secretary's salary, and I have no doubt it will stop there. The manifesto has been exploited in a quiet sort of way to bring pressure to bear upon the Government to compel children to be re-vaccinated at school age, and to get a re-

23

vaccination Bill passed through Parliament. Well, my friends, it is for you to say whether this shall be done or not; it is for you to say whether you are going to stand together hand-in-hand and heart with heart, upon this matter, and whether you will fight for

LIBERTY OF THE SCIENTIFIC CONSCIENCE

as your forefathers fought for liberty of the religious conscience. They fought, they won. You have suffered enough ; many of us have suffered. It is a filthy rite ; it is a vile and miserable superstition. Looking at it historically, looking at it scientifically, looking at it from the Christian standpoint, looking at it from the highest ideal of man­hood, I say it is an insult to the proud spirit of English liberty, of English justice, of English manliness, of English right, and for God's sake let me urge you, one and all, to-night to be determined to stand firm against this iniquitous practice, until the vile, miserable, superstitious Act is wiped from the British Statute Book. (Loud applause).

The Resolution was then put to the meeting, and carried unani­mously.

PUBLICATIONS.

The following publications may be obtained at the National

Anti-Vaccination League Offices at the prices named,

post free:—

Crookshank's " History and Pathology of Vaccination " (very scarce) .. 30s.

The Story of a Great Delusion (White) (very scarce) . . . . 10s. 6d.

Pickering's " Vaccination or Sanitation ? Which?" .. .. .. 5s.

The Minority Report of the Royal Commission on Vaccination . . .. 6d.

Vaccination a Delusion. (Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace) .. .. .. l1d.

Exit Dr. Jenner. (Dr. Creighton) _- .. .. .... .. 1d.

A French Medical Debate on Vaccination (Translated) .. . . .. 2d.

What about Vaccination ? &c. (Alfred Mimes, M.A.) .. .. .. 6d.

Why Vaccinate ? (Harold W. Whiston.) (Second edition) . . . . 6d.

Smallpox at Gloucester. (Dr. Hadwen) .. . . . . . . . . 1d.

The Vaccination Problem. (Alex. Paul) ' . .. . . . . . . 1s. 6d.

Smallpox at Middlesbrough. (J. T. Biggs) .. .. .. .. Id.

The Protest of an Anti-Vaccinist. (Edwin Cox) . . . . . . .. 4d.

Authoritative Opinions adverse to Vaccination . . . . .. . . 1d.

Pockmarked Faces .. .. .. .. .. .. 1s. 6d. per 100

Bound Volumes of The Vaccination Inquirer (several years), 2s. lOd. each

Is Vaccination a Disastrous Delusion ? (E. B. McCormick), 2d., post free 3d.

Reprint of Sir William Collins's Speeches in Parliament . . 3d. per dozen

Pamphlet on the German Argument . . . . . . 9d. per dozen

Vaccination a Curse. (Dr. Peebles, U.S.A.) ........4s. 2d.

The Outrage Vaccination, by Dr. C. F. Nichols, Boston, U.S.A. . . 1d.

Legend of the Smallpox Hospital Nurses . . .. . . . . .. 2d.

Summary of the Proofs, etc. (Wallace) . . .. . . . . . . 2d.

The Vaccination Act, 1898. (Mrs. Henry Fawcett) ...... 2d.

Reprint of General Phelps's Irish Correspondence .. . . .. 2d.

Facts Against Vaccination. (A Reply to the British Medical Asso-.

ciation's pamphlet) . . . . . . . . .. .. .. 3d.

Both Sides of the Vaccination Question. (By John Pitcairn and

Dr. J. F. Schamberg)............ . . Is. 2d.

How Smallpox was Banished from Leicester. (Dr. J. W. Hodge) .. 4d.

Vaccination, Pros and Cons. (A Reply to Dr. S. Monckton Copeman's

Article on Vaccination, in the " Encyclopaedia Britannica,"

11th Edition)................ 2d.

Smallpox and Vaccination in British India . . . . . . .. 6d.

Vaccination at Work (profusely illustrated) .. .. .. .. 2d.

25 Assorted Leaflets................ 6d.

The National

Anti-Vaccination League.

President—Lieut.-Gen. A. PHELPS.

Past President—W. TEBB, Esq., F.R.G.S.

Hon. Treasurer—]. C. SWIN-BURNE-HANHAM, Esq., J.P.

Secretary—Miss L. LOAT.

Advisory Committee—Mr. JOHN BROWN, Mr. J. F. HUBERT and Mr. A. E. VINDEN.

Lecturer and Organiser—Mr. JOHN H. BONNER.

Office—27 SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND, LONDON, W.C.

Telephone—4648 City.

OBJECTS.

The Objects for which the League is established are :—The entire repeal of the Vaccination Acts ; the disestablishment and disendowment of the practice of vaccination ; and the abolition of all regulations in regard to vaccination as conditions of employment in the Army, Navy, and in all State departments, or of admission to Educational or other Institutions.

CONSTITUTION.

The League shall consist of a President, Past-President, Vice-Presidents, Council, individual members and affiliated Societies.

(Cheques and Postal Orders for the League should be made payable to The

League or Miss Loat, and crossed "London County and Westminster Bank,

Covent Garden Branch.")

READ

"The Vaccination Inquirer"-

(Organ of the National Anti-Vaccination League).

(Now in its 33rd year of publication.)

Contains full information as to the progress of the Anti-Vaccination

movement in all parts of the world.

" The Vaccination Inquirer " is sent to any address in the world on payment

of 1s. 6d. per annum. Free parcels for gratuitous distribution will

be sent if carriage is paid.