was romance and rant without mitigation. In England and Wales there died of smallpox

Where then were the thousands of lives lost from the formation of the Government in 1859 to 1861 ? and where were the lives saved after the enactment of the vital clause? But who that knew Mr. Robert Lowe could believe that he was convinced that the surrender of the clause occasioned the loss of thousands of lives, and that the loss was to him a bitter reflection? Would not the vulgar version of the invocation, O mihi beate Martine! have been appropriate to the situation?

Further, continued Mr. Lowe

From 1837 to 1840 the deaths from Smallpox amounted to 12,000 a-year. From 1840 to 1853, during which period Vaccination was provided by the Poor Law Boards, the annual average of deaths was only 5,200. Thus by the diffusion of Vaccination, the mortality of Smallpox was reduced by more than one-half. Then in 1853 the Compulsory Law came into operation, and its first effect was remarkable. The number of vaccinations enormously increased and the deaths diminished. In 1854 they sank to 2,808, and in 1855 to 2,525. Afterwards they gradually increased up to the present time [When in fact they never were lower!], the Act having, as I already explained, fallen into desuetude. Thus is the efficiency of Vaccination established!

Into such stuff may a clever man descend! The statement was rotten with untruth. It was gross misrepresentation to set forth the average mortality of 12,000 for the years 1837-40 as permanent mortality which the Act of 1840 reduced to 5,200. The years 1837-40 embraced a severe epidemic, following years of quiescence during which vaccinators had been singing pæans over their imaginary victory. Holding as we do that smallpox comes and goes with indifference to vaccination (unless in so far as it keeps the disease alive) the figures cited by Mr. Lowe as completely illustrate our contention as they nullified his. By no contrivance can the fluctuations of smallpox be associated with more or less vaccination.

Probably Mr. Lowe was inspired by his medical staff, but, if so, he made the inspiration his own, evolving as from personal certainty, such fancy-work as this

Out of 1000 who take Smallpox without being vaccinated 350 die; while out of 1000 badly vaccinated only 150 die; but out of 1000 well vaccinated only 5 die.

To which the conclusive answer would have been, that a mortality of 7 in 20 of the unvaccinated was about double that of smallpox in the time when all were unvaccinated; and that disregarding the factitious classification, the mortality over all cases continued as it was in the prevaccination era. What smallpox was, smallpox has remained-discrete, confluent, malignant; each type being qualified as slight, dangerous, and deadly; the relation of vaccination to the type being wholly irrelevant.

Further, he proclaimed without reserve, that smallpox was transmuted to cowpox in the cow

There was a theory started that the efficacy of Vaccination was wearing out; but the valuable discovery of Mr. Ceely has set any apprehension on that score at rest for ever. Mr. Ceely has proved that Smallpox, when taken from the human body and introduced to that of the cow, produces Cowpox. It is thus evident that we have the means of obtaining Cowpox of the requisite strength to any extent. The beautiful discovery has also been made that the security of Vaccination may be almost indefinitely increased by multiplying the number of punctures.

Thus was mystery dispelled! Cowpox was smallpox diversified in the cow, and the lost security of Jenner's single puncture was recovered in tattoo!

Appealing to the sentiment of medical men in favour of vaccination as exhibited in the replies to Simon's queries in 1857-a fallacy for conviction which Mr. Lowe would have been quick to detect if advanced for any clerical, scholastic, or other trading interest, he observed

The terrible malady falls heavily upon young children: in Vaccination is their defence. Consider, then, what a painful responsibility will rest upon us, if, in the face of almost unanimous medical testimony, we leave them to perish, and communicate a dreadful contagion throughout the country. These children have no discretion of their own; and it is a profanation of liberty and selfgovernment to say that any man has a right to set up his own

sordid and brutal prejudices against such medical opinion, and expose his child to disease and death.

Words, ferocious words; but how do they bear examination? Why should disbelief in vaccination be stigmatised as sordid and brutal prejudice? Why should parliamentary affection for children surpass parental affection? The argument, if valid, would equally apply to any matter in which the conviction of a minority was at variance with that of a majority; and if in such circumstances the minority is bound to submission, where is the substance answering to civil and religious liberty? If the clear scientific persuasion of the smallest minority concerning such a matter as vaccination is to be subjected to vulgar medical dictation by the brute force of the majority, what form of tyranny may not be justified?

The Bill [continued Mr. Lowe] which I wish to pass into law is very simple. All that it enacts is that Poor Law Boards may appoint persons to prosecute those whom the medical officers report ought to be prosecuted.

And the bill was passed without division. Mr. Duncombe and Mr. Coningham protested, but neither had mastered the question so as to offer effective opposition. Mr. Coningham observed that figures might be made to prove anything; and as concerned the unanimous opinion of medical men, they had to bear in mind the saying, "There is nothing like leather." If smallpox had fallen off, there were extensive sanitary improvements to account for the fall; and, for his part, he placed his trust much more in better conditions of life for the people than in a prescription like vaccination.

The Act obtained did not fulfil the expectations of its promoters. Mr. Lowe's bitter regret for thousands of lives lost in consequence of his concession to Mr. Duncombe proved to be wasted emotion. Guardians did not exercise their powers as inquisitors and persecutors with adequate energy. Sir Morton Peto, in the House of Commons, on 14th March, 1864, asked

Whether the registration of Vaccination is not a total failure, alike for statistical purposes and for the prosecution of offenders

under the Compulsory Act; and whether it is the intention of the Government to amend the law this session.

To which Mr. Lowe made answer

It is quite true that the system of registration under the Act is very bad, but it would cost a great deal of money to improve it. Moreover, even when improved, it would not make the measures for compulsion effectual to any extent. The great difficulty of working compulsion is not so much due to defective legislation as to the reluctance to prosecute poor people for disobedience to the law, the neglect of which is countenanced by too many who ought to know better. I am sorry, therefore, I cannot hold out any hope of improving the system.

The medical officers of the Poor Law Board were, however, intent upon coercive legislation; and Mr. H. A. Bruce, more pliant than Mr. Lowe, introduced a bill of their contriving in 1866, which he assured the House of Commons "involved no new principle, and merely consolidated provisions dispersed over six Acts of Parliament, with a few amendments." On going into committee on the bill, 11th April, 1866, he delivered an elaborate defence of vaccination, prepared for him by the astute promoters of the measure, starting in this fashion

At the close of last century Dr. Jenner achieved his immortal discovery by which, perhaps, more misery has been prevented through the alleviation of pain and the preservation of life than by any other discovery that has ever been made.

Spoken from whatever elevation, nothing divides talk like this from that of a quack at a country fair. Having struck the note, Mr. Bruce ran through the familiar gamut of assertion wherewith the rite of vaccination is supposed to be justified. The following is a sample of the advocacy imposed upon him—

A statement has been widely circulated that Syphilis has been communicated by Vaccination. Millions of children have been vaccinated in the last sixty years, but not a single case has occurred in which it has been proved that Syphilis has been communicated. A case is alleged to have occurred in France in which a child had been vaccinated from another which inherited Syphilis, but the surgeon in that case, in taking lymph from a child covered with syphilitic blotches, acted in monstrous disregard of common pru

dence and medical knowledge. No such case, so far as the most careful medical research can discover, has happened in this country.

Whilst this statement would now incur general discredit, yet even in 1866 the official prompters of Mr. Bruce presumed over much on public credulity. It was not probable that what vaccinators did not wish they would discover; or, if discovered, proclaim. Nevertheless, the denunciation of the "alleged" French instance was entirely inconsistent with the contention that syphilis could not be communicated from a syphilitic vaccinifer, blotched or unblotched. So much it was imperative to maintain, for it was obvious that the complete vaccination of any population must involve infants with latent syphilis whose virus might transfer the disease to the untainted. This peril, opponents of vaccination, from Cobbett onwards, had recognised; and as its recognition was prejudicial to vaccination, its possibility was stoutly outsworn until manifold and indisputable evidence compelled its admission, and shifted the question to the extent of its frequency.

Mr. Henley, following Mr. Bruce, spoke some homely

sense

We all know that when we want anything of the kind done, the medical man entertains us with a fine cock-and-bull story about waiting until he can get lymph from a healthy child. This caution implies risk; and though it is said that not a single case of injury has occurred in sixty years, yet nobody will persuade me that medical men take all these pains (where they are well paid and watched) if there are not grounds for the exercise of care. doubtedly it was an abomination to take vaccine from a diseased child, but how is a public vaccinator to know that any child is diseased? If he inquires too particularly, he will run the risk of a slapped face from the mother for his trouble.

Un

Mr. Henley also drew attention to the claims made for vaccination, coupled with the admission that the greater part of it was good for little

One remarkable statement has been made-that there has been an examination of 500,000 children belonging to the humbler classes chiefly affected by Compulsory Vaccination. Of the number so examined only one in eight was found to have been perfectly