subject of Physic, who never attacked you on the subject of Religion? Would it not have been more prudent in you to have continued to expose yourself in your own trade in your own shop?

"As to my learned friend Dr. Lettsom (who is never out of the way when there is good to be done) being moved to instigate you, a Methodist parson, to enter into a medical controversy that can only be accounted for by supposing he owes you a grudge, and put you into my hands for payment."

Paid he was with interest-gross and Rabelaisian; and Hill, when he had picked himself up and recovered his senses, discreetly retired

from the combat.

Spite of his pomposity and buffoonery, there was good sense and humour in Moseley, and his resistance to the Jennerian mania was not ineffective. As he wrote in 1808

"It is ten years since I began this Trojan war against Vaccinia; and if it be not yet ended, I have at least the satisfaction to see that her original troops are no longer able to defend her throne; and that the mobled Queen with a clout upon her head where late the diadem stood,' has fallen to a new dynasty of mercenaries.

In Dr. Munk's Roll of the Royal College of Physicians we read, that Dr. Moseley was appointed physician to Chelsea Hospital in 1788, an office which he filled with the highest éclat for more than thirty years"—until his death in 1819

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"Though a shrewd practitioner, and undeniably a man of extensive mental capacity and very considerable attainments, Dr. Moseley was a violent opponent of Vaccination, on which his communications to the press were incessant. They did little credit to his medical penetration, or his qualifications as a dispassionate searcher after truth, and, happily for his reputation, are now well nigh forgotten."+

Are they? For what else is Dr. Moseley remembered? So that a man does his duty in the world, whether he be forgotten or remembered is not worth a thought; but Moseley's early and steadfast resistance to the Cow-Pox Imposture will long constitute his title to grateful recollection.

Dr. William Rowley, Physician to the Marylebone Infirmary, also left his mark in medical history as a determined opponent of vaccination. He had seen the profession and the public go mad about so many absurd novelties, that it did not surprise him that they should go mad about cow-pox: and after due experience and investigation he delivered judgment on the craze and its pernicious effects in a pamphlet entitled Cow-Pox Inoculation no Security against SmallPox, containing two coloured engravings representing the Cow-Poxed Ox-Faced Boy, and the

*A Review of the Report of the Royal College of Physicians of London on Vaccination. By Benjamin Moseley, M. D. London 1808. Pp. 86.

The Roll of the Royal College of Physicians comprising Biographical Sketches. By William Munk, M.D. London: 1878. 2nd Ed. 3 Vols.

Cow-Pox Inoculation no Security against Small-Pox Infection. To which are added the Modes of treating the Beastly New Diseases produced from Cow-Pox, explained by two coloured copper-plate engravings, as—

Cow-Poxed Mangey girl. Much ridicule was expended on these pictures, and to this day whoever wishes to be funny and create giggle over the early resistance to vaccination tells how one Dr. Rowley maintained that Jenner's benign virus induced the face of an ox on a boy; but like the majority of comic anecdotes, it is untrue. The engraving represents a comely lad with a swelling on the upper part of his left cheek, which was thought to give that side of his face an ox-like expression. Many a medical practitioner among the poor would at this day have little difficulty in presenting living examples of affliction answering to Rowley's pictures-and worse. It was, moreover, the fear or fancy of many at the time that inoculation with cow-pox might beget bovine characteristics in the human species, and the fear or fancy was turned to inevitable account in jest and earnest. The jest is visible in some of Rowlandson's caricatures, and stories like this got into circulation

"A child at Peckham, after being inoculated with cow-pox, had its former natural disposition absolutely changed to the brutal, so that it ran upon all fours like a beast, bellowing like a cow, and butting like a bull.”

In order to discredit Rowley, it is thought fair policy to connect him with such nonsense, and to have it supposed that he rested his case upon "the cow-poxed ox-faced boy:" it was far otherwise. He diligently tracked the vaccinators, and accumulated 504 cases of small-pox and injury after vaccination with 75 deaths, particulars being accurately specified. Nor was he content merely to report what he had ascertained.

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Come and see," was his forcible argument. "I have lately had under my care," he wrote, some of the worst species of malignant smallpox in the Marylebone Infirmary, which many of the faculty have examined and know to have been vaccinated." His trust in "Come and see," he still more powerfully exemplified in an exhibition of the injuries inflicted by vaccination in his Lecture Room in Savile Row in October, 1805. "Knowing," he said, "the cavilling character of the cow-poxers, I determined to leave them no hole for retreat"; and therefore he brought together Joules, "the ox-faced boy, who also had a terribly diseased elbow-joint ; Marianne Lewis, the mangey girl, "who was covered with blotches like a leopard"; "a load of children in a cart from the south of London," and others accompanied by their parents, and displaying their various maladies, said, "Behold the effects of the new disease that has been taken from the cow and implanted in humanity!" This painful exposition was continued over two days, and as he records, "the scene was truly affecting and distressing to all who witnessed it." An antagonist like Rowley is a serious

With the Author's certain, experienced and successful mode of Inoculating for the Small-Pox which now becomes necessary from Cow-Pox Failure, etc. By William Rowley, M.D., Member of the University of Oxford, the Royal College of Physicians, London, and Physician to the St. Marylebone Infirmary. London: 1805. Pp. 82. The first edition appeared 4th October, 1805, and a third 27th January, 1806,

factor in any controversy, and we may estimate the havoc he wrought by the extreme anxiety of the Jennerites to have him estimated by the supposed absurdity of the ox-faced boy.

To a man of practical temper like Rowley, the enthusiasm with which vaccination was at first advocated appeared akin to delirium

"I have been in some vaccination storms, and have had the buttons torn off my coat, cloth and all, to convince me of the great and infallible excellence of Cow-Pox. I have seen some of the vehement vaccinators redden like a flame with fury, their lips quivering, their eyes starting out of their heads, their mouths foaming, their tongues dropping hard words, and their fists clenched like pugilists, ready to accompany their violent wrath with other knock-down arguments. In such circumstances, mild, investigating Philosophy quits the scene and leaves the field of battle to the Bedlamites."

The fury had subsided in 1805, and Rowley held that many medical men were deeply ashamed of the extravagance into which they had been committed, but lacked courage to make frank confession after the manner of the Prayer Book saying—

"We have erred and gone astray like lost sheep, having followed too much the devices of our own hearts. We have offended against the laws of nature, and have done things which we ought not to have done; and there is no HEALTH in us.

Rowley died in 1806, and the regard in which he was held was manifest in the crowds who flocked to his funeral. In the Roll of Physicians, Dr. Munk observes

"Dr. Rowley was a determined opponent of Vaccination, and obtained an unenviable notoriety by his association with Dr. Moseley in opposing every conceivable obstacle to the reception and progress of that invaluable discovery."

The obstacles interposed were matters-of-fact, and as matters-of-fact were recognised and prevailed.

The controversy that followed the introduction of Vaccination" gave birth," says the Edinburgh reviewer, "to an infinite number of publications of all descriptions" from which he could only select the most characteristic. Among these we find Dr. Squirrell, whose book is described " as the most entertaining of the whole

"We will venture to say, though we know it to be a bold assertion, that there never was anything so ill-written, or so vulgar and absurd, produced before by a person entitling himself a Doctor of Medicine. There is a certain nimbleness and agility about him, however, which keeps us in good humour, and he whisks about with such a selfsatisfied springiness and activity, that it is really enlivening to look on him."

Turning up Dr. Squirrell's pamphlet we find little or nothing to warrant this description. It

* Observations on the Cow-Pox showing that it originates in Scrophula, commonly called the Evil; illustrated with Cases to prove that it is no Security against the Small-Pox. Also pointing out the dreadful Consequences of this new Disease, so recently and rashly introduced into the Human Constitution. By R. Squirrell, M.D., formerly Resident Apothecary to the Small-Pox and Inoculation Hospital. London: 1805. Pp. 76. A Second edition appeared in 1806.

is not ill-written, if judged by the standard of medical literature, and the " springiness" is a conceit of the reviewer's to sport with the Doctor's name. Our own impression is that Squirrell was a dull fellow, jealous of cow-pox as injurious to the trade in small-pox inoculation, and availed himself of the depression in the vaccination business to assert its superiority. He admits, indeed, that he kept silent during the Jennerian furore, "but the overwhelming torrent being gradually reduced to a feeble current," he reckoned that he "might now promulgate his opinion with a reasonable hope of success." He cites Jenner's account of the origin of cow-pox in the greasy heels of horses, and proceeds to argue that the disease is scrofula, which inoculation is certain to diffuse, whilst affording no protection from small-pox. He then adduces a number of cases in proof that inoculated cow-pox had not averted small-pox, and had in several instances brought on serious and fatal ailments. There is the woeful monotony of truth in these old pamphlets, not merely in the occurrence of small-pox after vaccination, but in the sadder stories of acute and chronic blood-poisoning. We recognise the narratives as true, for they are reproduced among us continuously by the same means, with the same miseries and agonies, and with the same death for grateful release.

It is clear from the testimony of Moseley, Rowley, and Squirrell, confirmed too by others and by the Jennerites themselves, that the extension of vaccination had met with a decided check in London. It was proved to many in a fashion that did not admit of dispute, that vaccination conferred no security from smallpox, whilst it was attended with dangers to health, certain if as yet undefinable. Variolous inoculation was again reverted to, but by diminished numbers; for that practice never had prevailed with popular good-will, but through sedulous medical persuasion as duty of dire necessity. Vaccination afforded excuse for hesitation, and, between rival claims, many contrived to elude either form of pollution. Thus indirectly as it were, vaccine inoculation set aside variolous, and when in 1840 the latter was forbidden by law, there was little of the practice left, whilst at the same time the majority of the population existed without Jennerian protection.

It is not to be forgotten that the early resistance to vaccination proceeded entirely from inoculators with small-pox. It was as yet unimagined that small-pox and other fevers were preventible, that their causes lay within easy control, and that health was the best defence of health. The world as yet lay in darkness as to those truths which we now recognise as laws of health, hygiene, and sanitary science; nor is the darkness rolled away, but is rolling away, and the time is not distant when to be vaccinated in order to be safe from small-pox will be accounted the drollest of absurdities.

Going back to the Edinburgh Review, we remark with curious interest how the chief position then asserted was the abiding efficacy of vaccination. Inoculators were ready to concede that it might possess a temporary prophylaxy, inasmuch as until one blood fever had

THE INEQUALITY OF THE VACCINATION ACTS.

[Speech of Mr. Tebb at the Annual Meeting of the Vigilance Association.]

MR. TEBB said he had listened with great attention to the speech of the Chairman (Mr. Jacob Bright), and especially that part of it which referred to the way in which important legislation was often forced through Parliament at the end of a weary sitting. One of the Acts to which he should like to refer was that which applied to compulsory medicine and which enforced a surgical operation-he meant the Vaccination Act. (Hear, hear.) It would be difficult to find any Act which ought to be more strongly condemned and opposed by such an Association as this. (Hear, hear.) If there was one instinct which was strong in the human race it was the love of offspring-out of that arose the desire to protect that offspring, to watch and guard it in every possible way, and to prevent all infection of disease or harm reaching it. This Act struck at the root of all this parental forethought-(hear, hear)-it took the child out of the hands of the parent and authorised an irresponsible officer, who gave no guarantee, to infuse into the veins of the child a poison, the dangerous effects of which could not be foreseen. (Hear, hear.) He held in his hand a Parliamentary Return which had just been published, which showed the fatal consequences of the system. This process of vaccination had the support of nearly the whole medical world, but that Return showed startling results, which were the outcome of this law. This official document dealt with mortality amongst infants, and was ordered by Mr. Hopwood-(cheers)—who had done so much to obtain the repeal of these Acts. (Hear, hear.) It would take him too long to analyse the figures, but he would simply state the fact that before the Vaccination Acts were passed in 1847 the deaths amongst young children from syphilis were 472 per million, but under that Act the number had increased fourfold, so that in 1878 they were 1,851 per million. (Hear, hear.) It was perfectly clear to anyone who would investigate the matter, and read the evidence of Mr. Brudenell Carter and Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson, that this terrible increase was owing to compulsory vaccination. (Hear, hear.) He arraigned this law also on account of its inequality, for it did not press equally upon all classes; it bore severely upon the poor, whilst it left the rich comparatively free to do as they liked. If the rich or well-to-do man objected to vaccination what followed? He got certificates for the postponement of vaccination from time to time, until the officers forgot all about it. (Hear, hear.) His child could be taken into the country with the same result, or the vaccination officers" squared," to stop prosecutions. A case like that alluded to in the Nonconformist had occurred in his own neighbourhood. (Hear, hear.) But supposing the parent was in favour of vaccination, a most anxious consultation with the family doctor took place, and the operation was postponed until the medical man "had a good case"; the child was vaccinated, and if it was well taken care of it was possible but little

harm might be done. The poor parents, on the contrary, were driven to the vaccination station, under the influence of threats of summonses, like sheep to the slaughter. A medical student who was obliged to attend a certain vaccination station told him that it was one of the most pitiable sights to go to one of these metropolitan vaccination stations and hear the parents beg the doctor to give only one mark, asking him anxiously if the lymph was good, and telling of the injury done to their own or their neighbours' children through vaccination. The Chairman, Mr. Hopwood, Mr. P. A. Taylor, Mr. Passmore Edwards, and other gentlemen present had laboured for the repeal of these laws, and last Session the Government, becoming alive to the inequality of the law, brought in a Bill to amend its stringency. No sooner was this announced than Mr. Dodson, the President of the Local Government Board, was literally besieged with deputation after deputation, petition after petition, begging the Government to withdraw the Bill, and the pressure brought to bear was so great that their prayer was granted. Several gentlemen-Petitions from whom?

Mr. Tebb-Originating altogether from medical men. (Cheers.) Mr. Ernest Hart sent a petition to the entire members of the British Medical Society, begging them to sign it, and in a private note asked them to do so as an especial favour to himself. (Laughter and Hear, hear.) Several thousand medical men signed that petition, and what did they say at the deputation? Did they attempt to answer the statistical returns which had been issued? Nothing of the sort. (Hear, hear.) They merely said the Bill would be a license for the spread of smallpox; wholly ignoring the fact that in Prussia, where vaccination and re-vaccination were enforced, the epidemics were the most severe of any country in Europe; that Sweden, where vaccination had been longest enforced, the mortality was excessive, and that, on the other hand, in those countries where there was but little vaccination there was little small-pox. He was in Spain six weeks ago, and Mr. MacPherson, the British Vice-Consul, told him that the only severe attacks of small-pox he knew of were in the army, where vaccination was enforced. In Queensland, Australia, where there was no vaccination, there was no smallpox. This was a question so severely affecting the liberties of the poorer classes no efforts ought to be spared by the Vigilance Association to obtain a repeal of this Act. (Cheers.)

MEDICAL BIAS.-The motives of the medical profession in making their astounding statements about vaccination arise from three different kinds of bias. 1. The bias that arises from fear of losing vaccination fees. 2. The bias from fear of loss of credit to the profession if vaccination were universally acknowledged to be a delusion. 3. The bias from habits of mind of a life-time. This last bias is a very strong one, and often leads doctors and others to be really and honestly blind to deaths and injuries from vaccination simply because they have been brought up to look in other directions.-H. STRICKLAND CONSTABLE,

ADDRESS OF DR. NICHOLS TO THE INTERNATIONAL ANTI-VACCINATION

CONGRESS.

Gentlemen,-I have the honour to represent at this Congress the First Anti-Vaccination League of America.

The President of our American League is Mr. Alexander Wilder, M.D., F.A.G., Professor of Physiology in the United States Medical College, New York. Three Doctors of Medicine form its Executive Committee, one of whom, Dr. Gunn, is a Professor of Surgery, while the Treasurer, Dr. Holbrook, is Editor of the Herald of Health, a journal of Hygiene, having a large circulation.

The object of this American League is-" To awaken the attention of the public to the evils of vaccination and to its inutility, to put an end to the practice, and to prevent legislation for its

enforcement."

There is not in America any general law of compulsory vaccination as in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and some countries of continental Europe. The Federal Congress has no power to enact such a law. It might make vaccination compulsory in the army and navy-perhaps in some branches of the civil service; but Congress has no such power over the great body of the American people, who make their own laws in the legislatures of their several States. The nearly fifty millions of the American people live in nearly fifty sovereign States, each having its own legislation. A compulsory vaccination law must, therefore, come before the legislature of each individual State, it must be discussed in public meetings and public journals, and in legislative committees. It may be adopted in one State, and rejected in another. I believe that no State legislature has yet passed a law of compulsory vaccination. It is the object of the American League to warn the people against the effects of such a law.

The compulsion that now exists in several States is through the action of the municipal bodies the local legislation of towns, requiring that children attending the public schools should first be vaccinated. In the same spirit it has been proposed to exclude all unvaccinated children from public schools, thus punishing parents by fine or imprisonment, and condemning innocent children to perpetual ignorance.

repeated and frequent vaccinations. But we go much further than this declaration and proof of inutility. We declare that vaccination is shortens life. To vaccinate is to communicate dangerous; that it often destroys health, and disease, and such disease is always an evil, and sometimes quickly fatal. In England many children die of vaccination. Many more are seriously diseased. It is admitted by the medical faculty that syphilis is propagated by vaccination. It is notorious that vaccination is followed by fatal erysipelas. I have seen cases of scrofula and skin diseases which could be attributed to no cause but vaccination. In

short, I believe that every contagious, hereditary or communicable disease, may be propagated by vaccination. Into the pustule of the vaccinated patient gathers the germs of disease, ready to be transferred to others, and by this process diseasing germs are spread through a whole combecome filled with the disease of those born in munity, so that the children of healthy parents less fortunate conditions. And no physiologist will deny the probability that every hereditary disease may be communicated and sown broadcast by vaccination. The survival of the fittest is made impossible by making all equally unfit. Can it be wondered at that parents should resist, even by force, if needful, a process of blood-poisoning which may fill their children with the foulest diseases? It would be inhuman not to oppose such a law. Vaccination is a risk which no government has a right to compel a parent to put upon his children. A man may give his life to save his country, but that he should sacrifice the lives of his children for a medical theory is what no government has a right to require, and the American people, instructed in the facts of vaccination, will join the nations of Europe in resisting the tyranny of a blood-poisoning, disease producing, death dealing legislation. We hope the Congress of Paris will result in the formation of an International League for the repeal of all laws compelling vaccination, and for the enlightenment of all peoples in the science of health, the real and sufficient protection against all epidemic dis

eases.

The true remedy for small-pox and all other diseases is health. To vaccinate is to disease. We ask that our protest against compulsory vaccination may be heard in the International Congress of Paris.

For the American Anti-Vaccination League, THOMAS LOW NICHOLS, M.D.

DR. ALLBUTT of Leeds delivered a lecture at Bradford entitled "Vaccination Defended and Proved against all Comers," on Sunday, 20th Feb.

The failure of vaccination to protect from small-pox is now too notorious to be denied. Its advocates admit it by their demands for

thoroughly carried out, it would in the course of a few years abolish small-pox, but did not explain why, when thoroughly tried, it failed to do so. There was a large attendance of anti-vaccinators, and, in the discussion which followed, they gave a good account of themselves. It is intended to have a two night's debate at Keighley in October between Dr. Aldbutt and Mr. Alexander Wheeler, on the claims made and the facts proved concerning Vaccination. Nothing could be better. Truth, like a torch, the more it's shook it shines.