"no use in arguing against vaccination, for when I was "young every third or fourth person was pock-marked," etc., etc., the effect is droll. It shows how prone we are to fancy we have seen what we think we ought to have seen. Droller still it is when striplings of five-andtwenty and thirty profess the same experience-" When "I was a lad," and so forth and so forth. There is matter for reflection as well as for laughter in the hallucination.

Nevertheless, if pock-marked faces are not so common as they must have been a century ago, they are by no means rare; and if the argument for vaccination were valid, the pock-marked would be unvaccinated. But are they? Those who will take pains to inquire will find that almost invariably they have been vaccinated, and some of them repeatedly, the vaccination having as it were induced the smallpox.

VACCINIA A REAL DISEASE.

Thus far we have chiefly dealt with vaccination as if its fault were limited to failure to prevent smallpox ; but vaccination is more than an ineffective incantation. It is the induction of an acute specific disease. The prime note of vaccination is erysipelas. "The cowpox inflam"mation," said Jenner, "is always of the erysipelatous "kind." He held that cowpox unattended with erysipelas was "incapable of producing any specific effect on "the human constitution." If it is supposed that Jenner is antiquated, we may refer to a distinguished contemporary. Mr. John Simon replying to the question, Whether properly performed vaccination is an abso"lutely inoffensive proceeding?" answers decisively, "Not "at all; nor does it pretend to be so." The rationale of vaccination is that it communicates a mild variety of smallpox, and that with a little of the devil we buy off the entire devil. Dr. Ballard, Medical Officer to the Local Government Board, in his treatise, Vaccination: its Value and Alleged Dangers, says, "Vaccination is not a "thing to be trifled with, or to be made light of; it is "not to be undertaken thoughtlessly, or without due

consideration of the patient, his mode of life, and the "circumstances of season and of place. Surgeon and "patient should both carry in their minds the regulating thought, that the one is engaged in communicating, the "other in receiving into his system, a real disease-as "truly a disease as smallpox or measles; a disease which, "mild and gentle as its progress may usually be, yet, nevertheless, now and then, like every other exanthematous malady, asserts its character by an unusual "exhibition of virulence."

VACCINAL FATALITIES.

Here we have Vaccinia defined as disease with precautions for its safe reception; yet withal it is allowed it may assert itself with virulence. But where do we find any precautions exercised in the vaccination of the poor? -that is to say, of the vast majority. Precautions are not only disregarded, they are unknown, they are impracticable. Infants of all sorts and conditions are operated on as recklessly as sheep are marked. Whether they live or die is matter of official indifference, whilst each is warrant for an official fee. Sir Joseph Pease, speaking in the House of Commons, said, "The President "of the Local Government Board cannot deny that chil"dren die under the operation of the Vaccination Acts in "a wholesale way." Vaccination conveys an acute specific disease (having a definite course to run like smallpox or other fever) which, whether by careless treatment, or superinduced, or latent disease, is frequently attended with serious and fatal issues. Hence it is that vaccination is dreaded and detested by the poor on whom it is inflicted without parley or mitigation; in itself a bearer of illness, it is likewise a cruel aggravation of weakness and illness. When the poor complain that their children are injured or slain by vaccination, they are officially informed they are mistaken. Dr. Stevens, a well-known familiar of the vaccination office, says he has seen more vaccination than any man, and has yet to witness the least injury from the practice. Variolators used to say

the same of their practice until vaccinators arose and convicted them of lying. Coroner Lankester held that vaccination was not a cause of death "recognised by law," and was therefore an impossible cause. Such prevarication is mockery. True it is that, if a child dies of vaccination, it dies of erysipelas, or pyœmia, or diarrhoea, and it is easy enough to ignore the primary cause and assert the secondary; but I would ask, How else can death ensue from vaccination than by erysipelas, pycemia, diarrhoea, or similar sequelæ? If vaccination kills a child, how otherwise could it kill? Even should death occur directly from surgical shock, it would be said, the child did not die of vaccination, but from lack of vigour to sustain a trivial operation. The Sangrado of the Stevens pattern is never without a shuffle.

VACCINIA MODIFIED IN ITS RECIPIENTS.

It is usual at coroners' inquests on vaccination fatalities to produce children vaccinated at the same time from the same vaccinifer, and to assert that inasmuch as they have made good recoveries, it is impossible that the virus was at fault, and that something else than vaccination must have been the cause of death. The argument often impresses a jury, but it is grossly fallacious. Suppose a mad dog bit six men, and that five escaped injury beyond their wounds and fright, and that one died of rabies, would the escape of the five prove that the death of the sixth was unconnected with the dog? Or suppose an equal potion of gin were administered to six infants, one of whom died and five recovered, would the recovery of the five prove that gin did not kill the sixth? Mr. Stoker writes to the newspapers that he vaccinated twelve other persons with the virus he used for Miss Ellen Terry, and that as no untoward symptoms appeared in the twelve, therefore Miss Terry's whitlow had no connection with her vaccination-and this in spite of the untoward symptoms falling due at the very time that vaccination accounted for them! Any reasons are good for those disposed to be convinced, and who have

settled it in their minds that vaccination is invariably harmless.

No doubt there is virus used for vaccination that is virulent beyond other virus, as there is virus that is comparatively innocuous; but, as Dr. Mead observed more than a century ago, "It is more material into what kind "of body smallpox is infused than out of what it is "taken." The same virus that one constitution may throw off with little effort, may induce disease and death in another. Dr. Joseph Jones, president of the Louisiana Board of Health, relates that "In many cases occurring "in the Confederate Army, the deleterious effects of vac"cination were clearly referable to the condition of the "forces, and the constitution of the blood of the patients; "for it was observed in a number of instances that the "same lymph from a healthy infant inoculated upon "different individuals produced different results corres"ponding to the state of the system; in those who were "well fed and robust, producing no ill-effects, whilst "in the soldiers who had been subjected to incessant fatigue, exposure, and poor diet, the gravest results "followed."

Some constitutions are peculiarly liable to injury from vaccine virus, just as some constitutions cannot endure drugs that others receive without inconvenience. Thus it is that fatalities from vaccination are frequent in certain families. Of these, neither the law nor medical men condescend to take account. Parents often plead in vain for exemption from the rite on the ground that they have already had children injured or slain by its performance; the brutal and unscientific argument running, "How can vaccination hurt your children when it does not hurt "other people's children?"

VACCINIA PLUS OTHER DISEASE.

Nor is the case against vaccination yet complete. The virus used is not only Vaccinia, but more than Vaccinia; for it is impossible to propagate virus from child to child without taking up other qualities. This was clearly

foreseen by the variolators when vaccination was introduced-they making it a point to take smallpox for inoculation from known and sound subjects. They maintained that cowpox transferred indiscriminately from arm to arm must acquire and convey constitutional taints; and their prognostication was speedily and grievously fulfilled in the item of syphilis. Notwithstanding, the fact was furiously contested. It was said that parents used vaccination as a screen for their own wickedness; and assertion alternated with denial even to our own day. At last the conflict is at an end. The evidence has grown too multitudinous and deadly for evasion. The invaccination of syphilis is admitted, and any question is reserved for the degree of frequency. Some are pleased to describe the risk as infinitesimal, but their pleasure stands for nothing but itself. Deeds are expressive beyond words. The wide resort to animal vaccination on the Continent and in the United States has but one interpretation. Doctors and patients do not abandon what is easy for what is troublesome, nor incur the risk of the communication of bovine disorders unless under the influence of over-mastering terror.

STATISTICAL EVIDENCE OF EXTRA DISEASE.

Relations of individual experience may be disregarded as untrustworthy, but the broad evidence of national statistics conveys authoritative lessons. Vaccination in England was made compulsory in 1853, stringently so in 1867, and systematically extended to the entire population. If therefore it were true that vaccination often communicates more than Vaccinia, and that it aggravates existent and excites latent disease, the proof must be manifest in the statistics of the Registrar-General. Thus argued Mr. C. H. Hopwood, and accordingly he moved in the House of Commons successively for three Returns, published as follows-VACCINATION, MORTALITY, No. 433, 1877; MORTALITY (GENERAL AND INFANT), No. 76, 1880; and DEATHS (ENGLAND AND WALES), No. 392, 1880.