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
It would be superfluous to deal with the fallacies involved in
these statements: they served to satisfy those who were disposed
to be satisfied, and inoculation became the fashion among the
scientific and enlightened. Dr. Tronchin, a well-known inoculator,
was summoned from Geneva to Paris in 1756 to operate upon the
children of the Duke of Orleans, and his success was pronounced
decisive. Nevertheless inoculation did not extend beyond people
of leisure and culture, and in 1763 an outbreak of smallpox in
Paris made an end of the practice. An inquiry was instituted by
the authorities, and the evidence left no doubt that the epidemic
had been diffused, if it did not originate, with the artificially
poxed; and inoculation was thenceforth prohibited in Paris. Any
citizen who was resolved to have the induced disease had to retire
to country quarters.
Here we may observe that the confidence of the inoculator was
grounded on the assumption that whoever had once passed through
smallpox, whether natural or artificial, could never again
contract the disease. Nevertheless the inoculated did contract the
disease, and the disaster was uniformly accounted for as due to
some imperfection in the inoculation. There were also instances
of smallpox after smallpox, but these, too, were discredited;
the first smallpox could not have been smallpox, but chickenpox,
measles, or some other eruptive disorder. There was a conspicuous
confutation of these evasions in the case of Louis XV. He had
smallpox unquestionably in his 14th year, and of unquestionable
smallpox he died in 1774 in his 64th year. Notwithstanding, the
assertion was perpetuated that there was no possibility of smallpox
after smallpox, and it was only when it became necessary to
maintain the credit of vaccination that the facts were admitted;
and in this form--Smallpox after vaccination is no more common or
extraordinary than smallpox after smallpox--a falsehood on the back
of a former falsehood.
We have seen under what safeguards inoculation was practised in
Boston, and now we shall turn to Geneva and discover how all the
American precautions were set at naught in that city with apparent
impunity. The details are from a letter of the Council of Geneva,
dated 24th December, 1791, addressed to Dr. Haygarth in answer to
his inquiries and suggestions. Des Gouttes, secretary to the Geneva
Syndic, wrote--
I.--The Republic of Geneva contains about 35,000 inhabitants, of
whom 26,000 dwell in the city, and 9,000 in the adjacent country.
II.--The city is of small extent, and ill adapted to so large
a population; and its extension is not easy on account of the
fortifications wherewith it is surrounded. There are little more
than 1200 houses in the city, which are built in many storeys of
many apartments like the ancient part of Edinburgh, each house
sheltering on an average twenty-one inhabitants.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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