provisions for the inspection and vaccination of children in public schools, and of emigrants; for revaccination in the event of epidemics; and for coroners' inquests on unvaccinated children dying of smallpox. There was no popular demand for such legislation. It was promoted by a group of medical place-hunters operating under the mask of the Epidemiological Society. The solitary petition in its favour was presented, 26th May, 1856, by Mr. James Furness Marson, a comrade of Dr. Seaton in the direction of the Society. Marson was resident surgeon of the Smallpox Hospital at Highgate, and as evidence of his unscrupulous advocacy, we may take the following assertions

Your Petitioner has, in the course of twenty years, vaccinated upwards of 40,000 persons, and has never seen any evil results traceable to Vaccination, with the exception of a single instance in which measles occurred at the same time, and four or five examples of rather' severely sore arms arising from lymph recently taken from the cow. He has never seen other diseases communicated from the Vaccine Disease, nor does he believe in the popular reports that they are ever so communicated.

The mortality from Smallpox in the Unvaccinated, of cases taken generally, is 35 per cent.; and among the Vaccinated attacked by Smallpox it is 7 per cent.

Among children under fourteen years of age who have been vaccinated, Smallpox hardly ever proves fatal.

As an example of what can be done by efficient Vaccination, your Petitioner begs to state that not one of the servants or nurses of the Smallpox Hospital has had Smallpox for the last twenty years. They have all been either vaccinated or revaccinated on coming to live at the Hospital.

The Petitioner omitted to mention how many of the said servants and nurses had entered the Hospital as patients, and were pleased to remain as officials. Prevarication throughout was the note of Marson's petition: he might argue that what he stated was true-true under conditions and reserves unstated.

It is often observed that the crafty never operate so successfully as when they have the earnest and ingenuous for instruments; and in Mr. Cowper, President of the Board of Health, the wire-pullers of the Epidemiological

Society had just such a tool. He believed what he was told, and delivered it with his own sincerity. In moving the second reading of the Bill on 31st March, he represented its object as "nothing more than the consolidation and amendment of preceding Acts;" and went on to say

It is admitted by every medical man whose opinion is worth a moment's consideration, that Vaccination is a specific against Smallpox; of course I mean where the operation is properly performed. In fact, it is a point decided in the medical world that Vaccination, when properly performed, is a guarantee against Smallpox, except in extremely rare cases; and no evidence has been produced to justify the idea that it is attended with injurious consequences. Statistics show that in proportion as Vaccination is extended, the mortality from Smallpox is diminished.

And so on; the lesson being recited with all the docility of a good child. Mr. Henley struck a different note

There is considerable dissatisfaction throughout the country with the mode in which Vaccination is performed. In my own neighbourhood, for example, the poor people complain that all sorts of eruptions appear on their children after the Vaccination they are compelled to undergo; and though they may be quite wrong, you cannot persuade them to the contrary. Then, too, I cannot approve of the transfer of Vaccination from the Guardians to a Central Medical Board. That change must be removed from the bill.

The second reading having passed unopposed on 31st March, and nothing more being heard of the bill, Mr. T. Duncombe, who knew the ropes of the parliamentary ship, grew suspicious, and on 7th July asked Mr. Cowper if he could fix a time when the bill would be brought on. Suspicion was amply justified by Mr. Cowper's answer. He said

The bill is not one in which Members take any great interest. It is one of that class of bills which are usually taken at a late period of the evening; and I hope the Hon. Member will not object to its being taken at the same time as other bills of similar character.

To which Mr. Duncombe replied—

If Hon. Members do not care for the bill, they do great injustice

to the people, because it is a compulsory bill. Two hundred petitions have been presented against it, and only one in its favour. A more arrant job than this bill I never knew, and I hope an opportunity may be given me to oppose it.

Mr. Cowper's simplicity was apparent in his answer. He said

I do not mean that the bill is of no importance, for it is intended to check the ravages of a disease which kills thousands every year. What I intended was, that the opposition which my Hon. Friend offers is not shared by other Members. My Hon. Friend says the bill will make Vaccination compulsory; but Vaccination is compulsory already. The purpose of the bill is to consolidate and improve existing legislation. It would be much fairer if my Hon. Friend brought in a bill to repeal compulsion. I will not bring in the bill after 12 o'clock at night.

The pledge not to bring on the bill after midnight settled its fate. Its promoters, aware that its provisions would not bear discussion, had reckoned on its unopposed passage at an hour when members were few, weary, and indifferent. Mr. Duncombe's vigilance defeated the scheme, which Mr. Cowper incontinently revealed. The bill was brought into Committee on 10th July, and the order for its reading discharged amid general satisfaction. Mr. Henley observed

I am very glad this bill is withdrawn. The endeavour to make Vaccination compulsory has been most mischievous. Vaccination was quietly making its way. People were adopting it more and more; but from the moment it was made compulsory, they began to think every evil which happened to their children afterwards ensued from it. I have no objection to refer the question to a Select Committee as suggested, but whatever their report, nothing will satisfy me that it is advisable to make Vaccination compulsory. Mr. Duncombe agreed that the course proposed was judicious

The question is delicate and difficult, and investigation should precede legislation. In 1853, at a later period of the session than that at which we have arrived, the Compulsory Vaccination Act was smuggled through the House. Fortunately it became inoperative through its own defects, which it is now proposed to remove, and to make the law more stringent; but while I believe that great good has resulted from Vaccination, I do not think we should try to encourage it by penal enactment.

Mr. Cowper, in protesting against surrender, observedSome argue as if people should never be forced to do what they do not like; but the force of this objection is greatly weakened when we recollect that in compelling Vaccination we are not obliging parents to do anything disadvantageous to themselves, but merely to take precautions against a loathsome and terrible disease.

The most intolerable tyrannies vindicate themselves by the advantages they enforce on their perverse subjects. The claim made for vaccination, that it protects the vaccinated from smallpox, deprived the vaccinated of any right to complain of risk of injury from the unvaccinated. Moreover, that those who were persuaded that vaccination neither prevented nor mitigated smallpox should be required to undergo an operation, that was to them a cruel and dangerous imposture, was surely a wrong of the most excruciating character. It was well that neither the bill of 1855 or 1856 was allowed to pass; but if either had passed, it might have brought the question of compulsion to an earlier issue.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

JOHN GIBBS'S LETTER-1855.

As we have said, there was little living confidence in vaccination. Jenner's undertaking, "that the person inoculated with cowpox is rendered perfectly secure from the infection of smallpox," had been everywhere conspicuously belied. But latterly a new faith had come into existence as to the preventibility of disease and the possibility of its suppression; and, thus persuaded, the public were less disposed to be sceptical toward new or revived prophylactic impostures. Favoured by this disposition of the public mind, a clique of vaccinators, operating under cover of the Epidemiological Society,

were able to obtain concessions from Parliament which, prior to the sanitary evangel, were unattainable. It was only when too audacious, they proposed to set up a Vaccination Office, endowed from the Exchequer, with inquisitorial and punitive functions, that they suffered check.

To resist doctrine it is necessary to possess doctrine. People might distrust or dislike vaccination, but they were at a great disadvantage against aggressors until prepared to justify their distrust and dislike in definite and scientific form, setting evidence against assertion, and veracious against factitious statistics. Unfortunately the mischief of coercive legislation was consummated ere opposition was organised. The first to frame a comprehensive indictment against vaccination was John Gibbs, an Irish gentleman. It took the form of a letter addressed to Sir Benjamin Hall, dated from Maze Hill Cottage, St. Leonards-on-Sea, 30th June, 1855. On the motion of Joseph Brotherton, M.P. for Salford, the letter was ordered to be printed by the House of Commons, 31st March, 1856.*

Mr. Gibbs opened his letter with drawing attention to the fact that whilst the Compulsory Act of 1853 was the first direct attack upon personal liberty in medical matters, there was "no subject upon which so many otherwise well-informed persons betrayed such ignorance and credulity as upon vaccination." Indeed, upon nothing were the legislators who enacted compulsion so frank as in their confession of ignorance and submission to medical instruction. What was there to justify legislation on terms thus abject against their fellowcountrymen ?

Why is Vaccination held in abhorrence by so many? Have those who reject it no weighty reasons to justify their rejection ?

*COMPULSORY VACCINATION.-Copy of a Letter, dated 30th June, 1855, addressed to the President of the Board of Health by JOHN GIBBS, Esquire, entitled, Compulsory Vaccination briefly considered in its Scientific, Religious, and Political Aspects. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, 31st March, 1856.-Folio, pp. 31.