The Story of a Great Delusion in a Series of Matter-of-Fact ChaptersWhite, William
History
The Story of a Great Delusion in a Series of Matter-of-Fact Chapters
White, William
Vaccination
Dr. Colin expresses what is now the common medical opinion in
saying, “We must not stop at a single vaccination. We must
establish the firm conviction in the public mind, that vaccine
prophylaxy is only real and complete when periodically renewed;”
and Dr. Warlomont, chief of Belgian vaccinators, goes yet further
in advising and practising what he calls _Vaccinisation_; which is,
that every subject of the rite be vaccinated again and again until
vesicles cease to respond to the insertion of virus. Then, and then
only, can the victim be guaranteed from smallpox! Such are the
shifts to which vaccinators have been reduced. If their insurance
were valid, the premium would exceed the principal, whilst there
is no reason to believe the new security is a whit better than the
old. In these frantic prescriptions we see the quackery in its
death-throes.
ABSURDITY OF REVACCINATION.
As for revaccination keeping off smallpox, it is absurd, and ought
to be known for absurd. The chief incidence of smallpox is among
the young, in whom it cannot be pretended that the influence of
primary vaccination is exhausted. The subjects of revaccination
are passing, or have passed out of the smallpox age; and as the
statistics of the army and navy prove, our soldiers and sailors
are no more exempt from smallpox than the unrevaccinated civil
population of corresponding years. In this matter, the old words
stand true, _Populus vult decipi; decipiatur_.
THE REDUCTION OF SMALLPOX.
From whatever side regarded, the original and successive claims
made for vaccination are seen to have broken down; but a practice
endowed and enforced as a poll-tax for the benefit of the medical
profession is not lightly surrendered. Instead a variety of
defences, more or less ingenious, are thrown out.
I.--One of these is the reduction of smallpox. It is said,
“Smallpox was once a common disease, and is now a comparatively
rare one--How are we to account for this improvement otherwise than
by the introduction of vaccination?”
The answer is, that smallpox was declining before vaccination was
introduced, and that, too, in spite of the extensive culture of
the disease by variolation; and the decline continued during the
first part of the present century whilst as yet nine-tenths of the
people were unvaccinated. Several diseases once common have abated
or disappeared; and why should we attribute to an incommensurate
cause a similar abatement in smallpox? Leprosy, once extensively
prevalent in England, has disappeared. Why? It died out gradually;
but suppose some rite, analogous to vaccination, had been brought
into vogue contemporaneously with its decline, would not the rite
have had the credit, and would not its practitioners have called
the world to witness the success of their prescription?
HAS VACCINATION SAVED LIFE?
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