Compulsory Vaccination: Report of a Public Meeting, held in the Marylebone Vestry Hall, London, on Wednesday evening, October 19, 1870.Marylebone Anti-Compulsory Vaccination League
History
Compulsory Vaccination: Report of a Public Meeting, held in the Marylebone Vestry Hall, London, on Wednesday evening, October 19, 1870.
Marylebone Anti-Compulsory Vaccination League
Smallpox -- Prevention; Vaccination
The chair was occupied by R. HALLAM, Esq. a Vestryman, who said, it was
twelve months that day, since a meeting was held in that hall, for the
purpose of inaugurating a Marylebone Branch of the Anti-Vaccination
League. Some gentlemen of the medical profession, subsequently said that
if they had been present, they could have upset all the arguments on the
other side. The executive of the Marylebone Branch had very
straightforwardly said, they would be happy to meet those professional
gentlemen, and the public notice which the secretary would read, invited
their presence. The notice having been read, the Chairman proceeded to
say it must be apparent to all that they were not assembled there to make
pecuniary profit. They did not come to receive vaccination fees, but to
enter their protest against such an iniquity. The subject they were to
discuss was one of the most important that could engage their attention.
A great outcry had been raised about the unfortunate position they stood
in with respect to infanticide and baby-farming; and Dr. Lankester, one
of the coroners for Middlesex, had made himself very busy to have a check
put upon those practices, but why did not the coroner reflect upon the
enormous amount of infanticide caused by the point of the lancet? Could
he be a conscientious man, when he carried his prejudice for vaccination
into the coroner’s court? He very much regretted that they had a medical
coroner, and although he had voted for him at first, he would promise
never to vote for another gentleman of the same profession. He then
referred to the recent inquiry in St. Pancras, on the body of a child
which died the day after it was vaccinated. The death was attributed to
congestion of the lungs, but the iniquitous part of the proceedings was
that the doctor who vaccinated performed the post-mortem examination.
Referring to the general question, he said that under the vaccination
system, even when small-pox was absent there was an equivalent disease
present. Dr. Lankester himself, in a return he had furnished to the
parish of St. James’s, said that although they had no small-pox, they had
its equivalent—scarlet fever—very bad. Dr. Lankester had also said that
there were three small-pox cases in the hospital; one patient was
unvaccinated, and two had been vaccinated. That order of things was not
according to the promise of the vaccinators, who told them that
vaccination was a preventative. Before calling on the speakers he would
just say to the medical profession, that they desired a fair and
impartial investigation. As an individual he was open to conviction, if
any gentleman present could prove he was in the wrong, but as far as he
at present saw, he should as much expect to see the sun shining in the
middle of the night, as to be convinced of the utility of vaccination.
If any medical gentlemen wished to speak and would hand up their names
they should be heard.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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