men that the escape of the Latin nations from compulsion is due. But observe the anomaly: the German Government interdicts the practice of vaccination in the case of animals, and compels it, under pain of fine and imprisonment, in the case of men. In France, it is exactly the contrary; compulsion is not for men, but for beasts. Thus you, distinguished savans of Germany now present, who have enabled us by your extensive inquiries and proofs to relieve ourselves from a threatened compulsory law, you yourselves submit to be treated as France treats its beasts. (Loud applause.)

Let us now, in full union of mind and determination, devote all our powers to the extinction of that leper of infancy, Vaccine. Let our motto be, Perfect freedom to submit or refuse, and the legal responsibility of the vaccinator.

LETTERS RELATING TO THE COLOGNE CONGRESS.

From DR. J. EMERY CODERRE, Professor of Materia Medica, Victoria University, Montreal.

Montreal, Aug. 23, 1881.

DEAR SIR, I do not see any possibility of Canada being represented at the Congress. You may count on my sympathy with your efforts. Distrust in vaccination is growing in Canada. We have few cases of small-pox (vaccination not being compulsory in Canada), but in London, small-pox continues to increase, notwithstanding vaccination. Men impose practices which reason cannot justify. The notion of introducing a purulent virus into the human system is so revolting to physiological science, that it is surprising more caution has not been exercised in adopting it. It would not have been so, I feel sure, had not the necessities of medical men prejudiced their minds against the

truth. I do not believe that vaccination has ever been practised with a serious conviction of its advantages-not even by Jenner himself.

Yours very faithfully.

Wm. Tebb, Esq. J. EMERY CODERRE. From HENRY BERGH, Esq., President of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. "New York, Oct. 3, 1881.

"Dear Sir,-I have received your card, inviting my co-operation in your movement against vaccination; but it is too late for me to do more than to express my entire sympathy with you, and my utter abhorrence of the foul and fatal system of inoculating a healthy body with the poisonous mucus of a diseased one. That scrofula, consumption, and other hereditary diseases result from that senseless and unnatural practice, I am completely convinced; and how any thoughtful parent can ever be induced to allow his babe, fresh from the hands of its Creator, to be impregnated by a disgusting virus, surpasses belief. What dreadful wrongs Science, in the name of vaccination and vivisection, has inflicted on animal life! With great respect, HENRY BERGH. [Some other letters and documents connected with the Congress we are compelled to hold over until next month.]

MR. W. H. NORMAN writes to Mr. P. A. Taylor: -"Having been vaccinated five times, and having had small-pox thrice-the last attack being the most virulent-I am, of course, firmly persuaded of the inutility of vaccination."

THE VACCINATION QUESTION RECONSIDERED.

SUCH is the title of an article in the Journal of Science, for November, dealing with Mr. Taylor's reply to Dr. Carpenter. The writer is evidently new to the subject, and has not fully mastered its bearing, and is undecided as to the main issue. He admits that "Mr. Taylor has made out a case, if not for the abolition of compulsion, at least for broader and more thorough inquiry; for in a matter of such importance we cannot afford to remain in the dark." Referring to the admitted increase of infantile syphilis concurrently with vaccination, he observes:

"Dr. Carpenter seeks to set aside these grim facts in a manner which we must decline to characterise. He contends that as we do not refuse to drink water because it may contain lead, so we should not refuse to be vaccinated because the lymph may contain the syphilitic virus! He forgets that it is easy to detect lead in water, whilst to discover the presence of syphilitic poison in vaccine is an unsolved problem. Further, not one nor a hundred glasses of plumbiferous water would establish hopeless lead-poisoning, whilst one minute particle of syphilitic virus introduced to the system may defy elimination. Lastly, even a fatal case of leadpoisoning is of much less consequence to society than a case of the transmission of syphilis. The former evil cannot be communicated by the victim to others. Nor must it be forgotten how greatly the danger is multiplied by the modern plan of repeated vaccination."

The reviewer is at fault in saying that "both Mr. Taylor and Dr. Cameron agree that vaccination, as now performed, falls very far short of giving complete protection, and that such protection is gradually decreasing." Mr. Taylor, we think, would dispute the reality of any protection whatever; and Dr. Cameron's notion of a gradually decreasing protection is due to his ignorance of the conditions and results of vaccination as practised in Jenner's lifetime.

HAVE YOUR CHOICE, GENTLEMEN. Small-pox is the most contagious of diseases.National Health Society's Tract on Small-pox.

I look upon Scarlet Fever, as the most infectious disease that there is.-Marson's Evidence, 1871.

easily preventible of diseases.-Norman Kerr, M.D., Typhus is at once the most contagious and most in British Medical Journal, Nov. 12, 1881.

WILLIAM A. GUY, M.D., F.R.S., will read a paper entitled, "Two Hundred and Fifty Years of Smallpox in England," during the current session of the Statistical Society.

EASTBOURNE. We have had a lively time here lately, and hope we have been the means of enlightening many on the question of vaccination. My own and my brother's goods were distrained and sold, and we immediately arranged a demonstration which paraded the principal parts of the town, followed by about a thousand spectators, chiefly sympathisers. I have come to the determination never to pay another penny by way of fine voluntarily, and on every occasion when the penalty is exacted to get up a similar demonstration. You should do likewise in London.-PHILIP LUCK.

A lengthy discussion on vaccination went on in the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle, until stopped by the Editor (out of concern for his readers' patience) at a point which left Mr. Wheeler subject to an unjust imputation from Dr. Easby. Mr. Wheeler had cited his comparative tables of Small-pox before and after Vaccination, which Dr. Easby ascribed to Mr. Wheeler's ingenuity, whereon Mr. Wheeler appealed to him as follows:

Darlington, Oct. 16, 1881. SIR,-In your communication to the Newcastle Chronicle you say :

"The mortality in the Rotherhithe case... is better evidence than the Table at the end of Mr. Wheeler's letter, which gives his own figures, and not those of the individuals he quotes."

This is absolutely false, and I write to know if you are prepared to publicly withdraw the part underlined.

I shall not pass by a statement so utterly untrue, and as the columns of the paper are closed to further communications, I await your reply.

ALEXANDER WHEELER. March, Cambs, Oct. 18, 1881. SIR,-I do not receive my Newcastle Chronicle until the end of the week, and as I have not yet seen the letter, I am not prepared to say what I may do. It was written late at night, and hurriedly, to catch the post, so that if I have said anything in it that I may consider not true, I will withdraw it; if not, I shall entirely decline. I am surprised to find you so thin-skinned. People who enter into a paper war must be prepared for a hard hit or two. W. EASBY.

Darlington, Oct. 31, 1881. SIR,-Having waited to see if anything appeared in the Newcastle Chronicle, I have again to ask you to withdraw the statement you made, and which I objected to.

You have had abundant time to prove that my Table was perfectly accurate, and it is due as much to your profession as to me to acknowledge it. ALEX. WHEELER. March, Nov. 3, 1881. SIR, I have not the abundant time you seem to think I have, or I would have replied to your letter

sooner.

The paragraph you refer to would seem to infer that you had manufactured the figures. This I did not mean to insinuate, and certainly withdraw that part of it. By a system of manipulation such as your rendering of Marston's [sic] Tables, the authorities you quote can be made to give the results you arrive at. Dr. Gayton tells another story, and his well and badly-vaccinated cases give very different tables of mortality. W. EASBY.

Darlington, Nov. 6, 1881. SIR, I am in receipt of yours of the 3rd, and am sending the correspondence to the VACCINATION INQUIRER for publication.

ALEX. WHEELER. March, Nov. 7, 1881. DEAR SIR,-I haste to reply to your letter of to-day, so that you may publish this, if you wish, in that refuge for distressed anti-vaccinators, the INQUIRER.

I have written nothing that I am ashamed of, whereas you, in common with most others of the Anti-Vaccination League, first tell the people that the statements of the medical profession are not to be relied upon, and then proceed to quote their figures as evidence, more especially if you can turn their figures to your own advantage. I flatter myself I had the best of the correspondence, and produce to me publicly or privately a case of disease I publicly challenged the anti-vaccination writers to

following vaccination; and what is the result? Not dence are against you, and all you can produce one appeared. Common sense and scientific evi-. are, first, mutilated statistics; second, alleged

statements of communicated disease that would not bear investigation. W. EASBY, M.D. Darlington, Nov. 8, 1881. SIR,-Your letter considerably surprises me. In the correspondence you refer to, you said that which was, as I pointed out to you, absolutely false. This you have now withdrawn, allowing your withdrawal to be made public.

And if you still think you have written nothing that you need be ashamed of, I must beg leave to differ, and leave it to others to decide between us. ALEX. WHEELER. March, Nov. 9, 1881. DEAR SIR,-I quite agree with you in publishing the correspondence, and I have no doubt but that you will get all the sympathy in the VACCINATION INQUIRER, and I all the abuse. I have no doubt the distinguished Editor will do me special justice in a little of something extra-spiced, and send me a copy of the paper, postage paid.

I never wrote anything false, neither have I withdrawn anything nor allowed it to be made public. This is a liberty you have taken without consulting me. You are quite welcome to do it, for it may please you and will certainly amuse me. The figures you quoted in your last letter to the Newcastle Chronicle certainly favour your side of

the question, but can you honestly say that any impartial person, after reading those authorities, can give the same? With this I leave you, hoping the next time you enter into a correspondence you will show less animus than you have done in this. Yours very truly, W. EASBY.

THE RYDE MEETING.

I FEAR it may be gathered from the reports in the VACCINATION INQUIRER that the sophistries of Dr. Martin and other leading provaccinators were allowed to pass unchallenged at the meeting of the British Medical Association at Ryde. This, however, was by no means the case; as I myself laid the whole matter before them, and was heard with reasonable attention by the meeting.

It is true that an appearance of unanimity was given to the motion carried, by the abstention from voting of those who had spoken in opposition; but this was on the understanding that the Public Health Section had no power to memorialise the Local Government Board; nor has any memorial on the subject of vaccination ever been forwarded to the Government which has received the sanction of a general meeting of the Association.

In good truth, many of the members are now beginning to open their eyes to the manner in which they have been deceived, and are heartily ashamed of the trash which is frequently put forward in their name. At the same time, it cannot be denied that they are also ashamed to confess defeat, and still endeavour to keep up the old system of "Boycotting" those who are willing to tell the public the whole truth.

Give them a little time, and you will soon see a mighty change come o'er the spirit of their dream. EDWARD HAUGHTON, M.D. Spring-grove, Upper Norwood, Nov. 12, 1881.

THE ZETETICAL SOCIETY is acquiring distinction as one of the most liberal and well-conducted debating societies in London; and has recently removed to excellent quarters at 9, Conduit-street, Regent-street. We are glad to see vaccination on the programme of the current session, Mr. Wm. White being set down for a lecture on March 8, entitled, "How will you have it? or, with what shall you be vaccinated ?"

ANTI-VACCINATION IN THE NETHERLANDS.-The annual meeting of the Anti-Compulsory Vaccination League was held in Amsterdam on Nov. 4, Mr. Keuchenius, M.P., in the chair. The League now consists of upwards of five hundred members resident over Holland. Owing to a misunderstanding as to dates, no Dutch representatives were present at the Cologne Congress, but next year an adequate delegation will appear at Berlin. The Dutch League bases its action chiefly on the injustice of interference with civil, personal, and conscientious rights, and the members are not held to disapprove of vaccination in itself. The executive of the League consist of Mr. L. W. Keuchenius, M.P. at the Hague, Professor D. P. D. Fabius, Dr. P. G. Datema, Dr. A. J. W. Monnik, Professor Dr. Ph. J. Hoedemaker, Rev. L. Lindeboom, A. Baron van Dedem, Mr. Th. à Th. van der Hoop van Slochteren, Rev. H. Pierson, and J. Floorp, secretary.

agree.

SO

In nine days the crisis arrived and brought on convulsions. The doctor came, and was alarmed that he gave the child a hot bath himBut not self, as the mother was then unable. hot water, or hot anything, could undo the mischief done. In about thirty hours, the child died in a convulsive fit, after suffering fearful agony. As soon as it was dead, the vaccinated arm turned black, and the whole body was soon black all over-worse, putrid through and through, so that a coffin had to be hurriedly made, lest the wretched remains should not hold together. The doctor was upbraided by father and mother: "You have killed our child with your vaccination." He said it was nothing of the sort; the Of course vaccination had nothing to do with it. not. Only get a doctor face to face with the evils of vaccination, and he lies audaciously, whether in public or private.

Let this doctor say what made every drop of this child's blood putrid, but the putrid animal matter he or his substitute put into it. Let him state what caused the convulsions to come on nine days after vaccination, in the case of a previously healthy child. All who know the case and know the parents are quite satisfied; though the doctor may swear himself black as his victim, no one will believe him.

How long, O Lord, shall medical despots "do iniquity by law ?"

How long, O Lord, shall the poor of thy people be trampled down, their infants polluted or slaughtered, and the righteous remain powerless? W. GIBSON WARD.'

Perriston Towers, Ross. The foregoing communication was addressed by Mr. Ward to the Ross Gazette, but the Editor returned it, saying:

"We cannot publish your letter. The case is one that demands inquiry, but not in the columns of the Ross Gazette."

Why not in the Ross Gazette? Is the truth so very disagreeable that it cannot be published?

ROCHDALE.-There is an epidemic of small-pox in Rochdale-120 cases in ninety houses-and the alarm is extreme. Yet in Rochdale for several years past vaccination has been practically universal, 96 per cent. of the children born being certified as vaccinated. Is it not wonderful ? Vaccination must have lost its power indeed. In Jenner's days it was sufficient to vaccinate 5 or 6 per cent. of the inhabitants of a town in order to exterminate small-pox, and now not 96 per cent. is effective!

MR. ENOCH ROBINSON, M.R.C.S.-Mr. Robinson is a member of the Board of Guardians, Ashtonunder-Lyne, and with kindly firmness maintains the standard of truth as to small-pox and vaccination. In the Ashton Reporter, of Nov. 19, we read:-"The Ashton Board of Guardians is in a bad way. It has on it a doctor too many or a doctor too few for its peace of mind on the subject of vaccination. They could agree well enough among themselves if it were not for Dr. Robinson. A lot of laymen could lay down the law and gospel on the question with unfaltering dogmatism and full assurance of their own infallibility; but when an anti-vaccinating doctor comes in amongst them, they are obliged to say mum," to confess that they cannot argue with him, and to express an unutterable longing that some part of the district would send to the Board a qualified medical practitioner, with strong views on the question of vaccination, in order that he might argue the point with the redoubtable doctor from Dukinfield. The Guardians echo the sentiment

A skilful leech is better far Than half a score of men of war. They have plenty of pugnacious men of war on the Board, but they want another skilful leech. But how would the business of the Board ever get done if the desiderated doctor should turn up and the discussion on vaccination go on from week to week, like the tales in the Reporter, always to be continued in our next,' until one of the doctors confessed himself vanquished?"

DR. FOWLER, speaking at the City of London Union, on Nov. 8, said, "It is admitted in the medical profession that the virulence of small-pox has greatly increased." Indeed! We usually hear that vaccination has made small-pox milder -ever so much milder!

"How BABY WAS KILLED."-This useful and touching story, issued by the London Society, has been honoured with the publication of a parody, entitled, "How Baby was saved," by Messrs. Cassell and Co. The parody is a wooden affair, overcharged with medical quackery; but it may do good by directing attention to the genuine narrative, which is read with avidity wherever circulated. The true tale is verified in common experience, and gives reason and courage for the steadfast resistance of wise and loving parents to the pollution of their children's blood.

MR. THOMAS STRAIN.-We read that the Belfast Guardians have directed their solicitor to prosecute Mr. Strain weekly until he submits his child to vaccination. We question the practicability of so much vengeance; but what an instructive commentary is the threat upon Lord Walsingham's assurance to Mr. Young, that "it was in no degree the intention of the Vaccination Act that prosecution in any case of conscientious objection should be carried to the extent of persecution!" It is under amiable imbecility like that of Lord Walsingham's that much infamous legislation is perpetrated; and when the mischief is done, the gentle enthusiasts say, "We never imagined it would have been possible. We are very sorry, for it cannot now be helped."

MR. AMOS BOOTH AT ASHBY.-Mr. Booth made his first appearance at the Ashby Police Court on 28th October, when he represented two members of the National Anti-Compulsory Vaccination League. Major Mowbray, the presiding magistrate, objected to Mr. Booth's claim to represent the defendants, on the ground that, not being a

solicitor, he had no locus standi. This objection was quickly disposed of by Mr. Booth, who called attention to the section of the Act empowering the appearance of any person authorised by a defendant. This little skirmish over, Major Mowbray retired from the bench, he being a member of the Board of Guardians, the prosecuting body. The Vaccination Officer, having given evidence as to the service of the notices, was cross-examined by Mr. Booth, who, having succeeded in eliciting the fact that the instructions of the Local Government Board had not been properly carried out, applied for a dismissal of the summonses, with costs. Though he had some difficulty in convincing the sitting magistrate (Mr. H. E. Smith) and the clerk, they ultimately surrendered to the authorities supplied by Mr. Booth. Accordingly, they dismissed the cases, though they declined to grant expenses to the defendants and their representative, but saddled the prosecution with the costs. It was extremely amusing to mark the ease and dexterity with which Mr. Booth handled the case; and very refreshing to watch the confutation and confusion of "the powers that be" by a gentleman who, whatever else he may or may not be, does not claim to be a solicitor.-Leicester Town Crier.

DR. EASTWOOD, at a recent meeting of the Darlington Rural Sanitary Authority, observed that they all knew, notwithstanding the ravings of a few fanatics, that small-pox was now a different disease from what it was before vaccination was introduced, and that a great many lives were saved every year in consequence of vaccination. Such is medical talk addressed to the vulgar! Dr. Eastwood knows very well that small-pox is unchanged by vaccination; and if asked for proof that vaccination has saved many lives, would have to own that he had none.

WISER, PERHAPS, THAN SHE APPEARED.-The Sydney Bulletin says a city medico tells this story. A girl from Elizabeth Bay came to him with her mother to be vaccinated, and was terribly nervous about the matter. Just as the doctor was going to start work, she threw her arms round the old lady's neck, and sobbed: "One last kiss, mamma, before the operation!"

AN HONEST MAN.-Dr. Morton, by advertisement, informs the inhabitants of Tenterfield that he has resigned the appointment of Government vaccinator, as he cannot conscientiously vaccinate, otherwise blood-poison, the population. Sydney Bulletin, Sept. 3, 1881.

IN NEW ZEALAND, as in Australia, there is little small-pox, but as business is to be done in vaccination, constant attempts are made to excite alarm, and compel the authorities to enforce vaccination. A correspondent informs us that the doctors have recently been making an inquisitorial examination of children from house to house and from school to school. Unvaccinated scholars are sent home; and thus the children of conscientious antivaccinators are, so far, condemned to ignorance, as in Holland and some parts of the United States -a worse infliction than fine or imprisonment. A number of Maories have recently been vaccinated, and at Parihaka a Maori has started as public vaccinator. A little girl at Nelson, Ellen Jane Thorne, has been killed, and the jury returned the verdict that her death" was caused by the vaccine disease." We hope our friends at Nelson, Dunedin, Auckland, and other places will start Anti-Vaccination Leagues, and at all hazards resist the extension of the dangerous superstition.

VOL. III., No. 34.]

NOTES OF THE MONTH.

DR. RICHARDSON is to be commended for his outspoken condemnation, at the Brighton Public Health Congress, of the fashionable nonsense prevalent as to immunity from disease by means of Pastorian inoculations. "Science," he said, "is in the main most useful, but is sometimes proud, wild, and erratic, and has lately proposed a desperate device for the prevention of infection's perils. She proposes to prevent one peril by setting up another. She would inoculate new diseases into our old stock, in the anticipation that the new will put out the old. I pray you, be not led away by this conceit. This manufacture of spic-and-span new diseases in our human, bovine, equine, ovine, canine, and perhaps feline species is too much to endure the thought of, especially when we know that purity of life is all-sufficient to remove what exists, without invoking what is not." This breath of common sense is reviving, after the course of silliness we have endured since Pasteur's inoculations for chicken cholera, and charbon in sheep caught the popular fancy, and the last revelation of science was thus delivered, “Hurrah! the terror of stench is passing away! We shall soon be able to exist in whatever dirt we like after inoculation with the com

plete series of filth fevers." Dr. Richardson recalls the public from such insanity to the true gospel of health, assuring them afresh, that in the observance of simple and well-attested sanitary laws is the sure and easy means of safety from disease. How far this profession of faith is in accordance with Dr. Richardson's private habit of vaccination and re-vaccination we are not concerned to decide. We require no stronger condemnation of the practice than his own testimony at Brighton.

[PRICE 1d.

vaccination. He maintained that "small-pox' typhus, and other fevers occur on common conditions of foul air, stagnant putrefaction, bad house drainage, sewers of deposit, excrementsodden sites, filthy street surfaces, impure water, and over-crowding"; and "that the entire removal of such conditions is the effectual preventive of diseases of those species, whether in ordinary or extraordinary visitations." This is precisely what we have to say of the prevention of small-pox in opposition to the vaccinators with their miraculous dodge. Let us attend to the conditions of health in general, and we shall have its blessing in full, with exemption from smallpox as a consequent particular. When epidemics occur, Mr. Chadwick recommends the separation of the unaffected from the affected, with home treatment if possible; if not, then by providing convenient temporary accommodation, avoiding the carriage of the sick to a distance, and their aggregation in monster hospitals, where the chances of recovery are diminished, and the deathrate augmented. Mr. Chadwick is the oldest representative of that earnest band of sanitarians who, in the course of the last fifty years, have revolutionised the thought of the world concerning disease, who have substituted hygiène for medicine, and taught, and proved in practice, that

to a vast extent we hold our fate as to life and health and death in our own hands. In the light of this doctrine, vaccination lingers as a survival from the age of darkness, having no place in Mr. Chadwick's philosophy.

Dr. Alfred CARPENTER has occasionally appeared as one of the wilder vaccinators, but in his speech at the Brighton Congress he exhibited a temper and pursued a line of argument with which our sympathy was almost unbroken. He was pleased to say that "if anti-vaccinators were as energetic in the promotion of sanitary work as they are in antagonism to vaccination, they would be doing some good in the world, and assist in bringing about a condition of things which would render vaccination altogether unnecessary." The