80 St. George's Square, S. W. 30th June, 1881. Sir,-If you will refer to my letter in the Times you will see that what I said was that "since vaccination had been introduced the mortality in recorded cases of small-pox in unvaccinated persons had steadily increased, though in a much smaller ratio than in vaccinated cases. You say that there are two means of proving this, the second of them the hospital statistics of the disease, and you enclose me Gregory's hospital statistics for 1838, which, though much too small a basis for generalisation, sufficiently illustrate what I said. According to the figures which you sent the other day, the death-rate in the 18th century was somewhere about 18 in every 100. In Gregory's unvaccinated cases in 1838, the death-rate is about 40 in every 100, and in the epidemics of 1870-80 it was 45 or 46. Ás to what I said about ignoring recorded facts, my remark seems to be amply justified by the circumstance, that while giving Gregory's table, you quite ignored the vast difference in his vaccinated and unvaccinated cases. As to your question about specific identity of small-pox, you will find that answered in my first note.-Yours very sincerely, CHARLES CAMERON.

To Mr. A. WHEELER.

Darlington, 3rd July, 1881. Sir, This correspondence arose out of your letter to the Times, in which I understood you to imply that the disease (small-pox) was more fatal than formerly, both to the vaccinated and to the unvaccinated, and therefore on the whole more virulent. Your reply to my question on this point, says, "Statistics seem to me to prove increased virulence." And yet you say the disease is "specifically identical." I cannot understand the disease

to be proved more virulent, and I gave facts to prove, as it seemed to me they did prove up to the hilt, that the fatality of small-pox is not a whit altered. You acknowledge the genuine result to be unaltered, I think. How can you then appeal to unproved classification to show any improvement to vaccinated, or detriment to unvaccinated? If the disease is the same, the cures equal in number, may we not fairly ask, how you come to fail of curing an equal number of unvaccinated, now, from what you cured before Jenner? The disease is the same, its general fatality unaltered. Then why not cure an equal number of unvaccinated? And when you find that your classification is absolutely defective, when you find no attempt to prove the fact as to the non-vaccination, when you find acknowledged vaccinated in large numbers classed as unvaccinated, you have, if scientific, to demand the utmost scepticism in respect of a division showing improvement, when general results are the same. You deal with an eruptive disease, which often, in bad cases, and only in bad cases, destroys the skin, effacing for a time any trace of vaccine cicatrices; this is the disease you deal with. You are well aware that in the "discrete" cases, no difficulty will be found in seeing the marks of vaccine. Know, that the difficulty of seeing these marks begins with the semi-confluent, and increases towards the confluent and malignant cases. And yet, you ask credence for the statements, that the classification by the marks is a correct classification! Are we to suppose that a claim so very bad, is serious? Are we to cast aside an explanation agreeing with all the experience you can gather, viz.-the classification by the eruption -for classification by "marks"? Surely, sir, you cannot seriously ask it? Interested officials of course can ask it: even honestly ask it, for we are blinded by our interest. But you have no interest but the public good, I think. The classification by eruption gives scientific results. These results may be predicted to great nicety in any large experience; must these not be true results and the right classification? The other gives no clue. You cannot find in it a rule applicable to experience at all, except this, that mild cases must of course show good marks, and that the worse the disease, the less distinct and visible the "marks will be. I enclose an extract from a Birkenhead report, giving reasons from medical evidence, for distrusting the classification by marks. And I would remind you, that of 1376 children (Dr. Bridges' report, 1876) examined by Dr. Bridges', who had been successfully vaccinated, only 31 per cent. showed marks he thought suitable ! Here is uncertainty, and the ground for every error. In the classification by eruption, all is regularity, order, precision. Is not this so?-Yours respectfully,

cinated counted for nothing, as about 80 per cent. of the patients entered in the third column of the table were reported as having been vaccinated in infancy."

Dr. Russell's Glasgow Report, 1871-2. P. 25, "Sometimes persons were said to be vaccinated, but no marks could be seen, very frequently because of the abundance of the eruption. In some cases of those which recovered, an inspection before dismission discovered vaccine marks sometimes 'very good.""

Metropolitan Asylums, 1870-2.

P. 1, "Of the 2763 deaths about 394 occurred within 48 hours after admission."

80 St. George's Square, S.W.,
5th July, 1881.

Sir, I have received your letter, and have again to remark that it illustrates the same determination to ignore recorded facts which do not square with your theory, to which I have more than once referred. The printed letter to the Manchester paper which you sent me the other day shows that you know all about the thousands of classified cases that have been recorded since 1836. They are divisible, in the first place, into cases (1) in which there was no doubt as to the fact of vaccination, marks being visible which bore witness to it; (2) cases in which there was a doubt as to the fact of vaccination, the patient asserting it, but no marks being visible; and (3) cases which had not been vaccinated. Classified thus, recorded statistics show that the mortality in the vaccinated cases is a mere fraction of what it is in the unvaccinated. But you do not accept this classification: you argue that in the most dangerous cases the eruption renders the vaccination marks invisible, and that therefore these cases are relegated to the class of the unvaccinated, whereby the mortality of that class is increased, and that of the vaccinated to the same degree diminished. Now I am willing to waive the point, though I do not see that the possibility of error from such a cause can make any substantial difference in the mortality in the resulting average. But it cannot seriously be contended that if the eruption allows the marks to be seen it can prevent them from being counted. It cannot be contended that if four vaccinal cicatrices are visible it must be because the eruption is milder, than if the physician could only discover three, two, or one. If vaccination has no effect on small-pox, the extent of the operation should make no difference, and the average mortality should be the same whether the marks showed that one, two, three, or four punctures had been made in vaccination. Now you must know very well that according to thousands of recorded cases this is not the case, that the thousands of cases that have been analysed show that in those which presented four marks the average death-rate was not a third of that in cases where vaccination had been performed in only one place. You can only get rid of this fact, or of all the corroborative facts taught by an analysis of these figures, by assuming that the observers have been unable to count, or that they have deliberately set themselves to work to fill up lies. If you put them aside on this basis you have still to throw overboard results of direct experiments on men and animals. Now I do not object to your rejecting what facts you like, only I do think it would have saved you a good deal of writing had you in your first letter expressed your intention to admit as

facts only such recorded facts as suited your theory. As to my views of specific identity and increased virulence, there is nothing inconsistent in that. Those dwarfs. the Midgets, and Chang, the Chinese giant, are specifically identical, and yet Chang would prove a more potent enemy than many midgets. In conclusion allow me to guard myself by stating that in regard to several points your statement of my views is altogether inaccurate.Yours very sincerely, CHARLES CAMERON,

Mr. A. WHEELER.

If it

Darlington, 10th July, 1881. Sir, Lack of opportunity has prevented me replying to yours of the 5th before now. More than once, and now again, you tell me I ignore what you call "recorded facts which do not square with my theory." I wish I could make it plain that I have no theory. It is my belief that theories have done great harm in this connection, and my sole desire is to show that the theorising of the vaccinators does not accord with "recorded facts," and therefore to help to clear my country of the expense, trouble, and wrong of supporting false theories. What I must insist upon as to the vaccinated, is, that in no case does the classification you accept prove to be scientific. was scientific it would apply to any experience. And in your letter to the Times of 20th June, you point out that in three, four, and more marks cases, the experience of 1852-67, does not fit with the experience of 1870-79. But I offer to recall you to your own eminent Sydenham, for the scientific observations which will fit with all experience, and you say I "ignore" the other! Would you say that Galileo ignored the solid mountains and the everlasting hills, because he insisted that the theory that they were fixed was wrong Even so, I, having examined most carefully the hospital records, find no parallelism in them, as stated in orthodox fashion. But I find their experiences all run into order and scientific exactitude if you will but follow the great men of your own profession. If "four marks" cases always yielded a certain fixed per centage of cases and deaths; if these were followed by "two marks" cases showing also a certain fixed per centage of cases and of deaths; if one and three marks cases followed again a strict and regular experience, and if these were always milder than the experience of a hundred years ago; if when you had a great many vaccinated you had on the whole fewer deaths; and fewer still as the vaccinated proportion rose; then I could admit that you should classify by marks; and that you should classify by counted marks; but as you know, I presume, this is not to be shown. If you go by marks all experience differs, no two hospitals show the same results; all is confusion. While all the time, the classification by disease and by eruption shows the disease to be the same, the cures the same, the fatality the same. come back therefore to the scientific conclusion, 1st, that small-pox is unaltered; 2nd, that vaccination is unable to influence either the disease or the fatality. I "throw aside" no facts. I willingly accept all. I only ask you to be good enough to accept the actual results which all these facts teach us; and not insist on an impossible attempt to screw these facts into harmony with theories which can only be even partially maintained by entirely ignoring half the experiences and facts. It may seem curious to you to me it is clear-that those who desire to judge the whole case by dividing the

I

evidence with an uncertain line, and treating the thus divided classes separately, whether they judge it by the vaccinated, or the unvaccinated, thus produced, ignore the great results as completely, as-to revert to Galileo-did those who wished to decide the inferiority of the solar system by the apparent stability of the earth. Let each draw his own conclusions in a controversy, but I must ask that my statements may be treated in good faith, as I hope I have treated those of the authorities I quote.-I am respectfully, ALEX. WHEELER.

Dr. C. CAMERON.

The following table shows what I say of the marks, and of the eruption.

A. W.

If taken age by age, the irregularity becomes a This shows, as far as London is concerned, that there are more cases in the two and three marks columns than in the one.

complete muddle in

columns.

same, the fatality the same." A reference to your table will show that the fatality in the discrete cases in the different groups varies from 1 to 4 in every 200, and in the confluent from 24 to 49 in every 100-a very much greater variation (or muddle, to use your own phrase) than is observable in any of the other groups. The classification according to number of cicatrices may or may not be scientific, but the figures selected by yourself show that in close on 4000 cases with three marks the mortality is only about one-third of what you say it was in small-pox before vaccination was invented; and that in nearly so many more cases with two marks it was less than half what you say it was before vaccination was invented. With these facts before you in your own table you arrive at the "scientific conclusion" that " vaccination is unable to influence either the disease or the fatality." To me it seems that arguing in the same fashion I might with equal reason arrive at the scientific conclusion that 2 and 2 make 5, or that the propositions of Euclid are from beginning to end one mass of erroneous theories. -Yours very sincerely, CHARLES CAMERON.

Mr. A. WHEELER.

HOSPITALS.

One Mark Cases.

the

"marks

80 St. George's Square, S. W. 11th July, 1881. Sir, I have received your letter and am quite content to allow the statistical table you enclose to answer your arguments. You reject the classi fication of marks as artificial, but accept the according to eruption because you assert that it "shows the disease to be the same, the cases he

MR. WM. YOUNG delivered a lecture entitled, "Vaccination-a Failure, a Fraud, and a Crime," at the Progressive Club, Notting Hill, on 26th June-Dr. Nichols in the chair. At the close of the lecture many questions were asked, and the subject elucidated by Mr. R. O. Fitch, Mr. Ashman, and the Chairman. Although invitations had been sent to Drs. Drysdale, Carpenter, and other upholders of compulsory vaccination, no opposition was attempted.

THOUGHTFUL GUARDIANS.-At a recent meeting of the Shoreditch Board of Guardians, the following resolution, on the motion of Mr. Lucraft, was carried "That no application to the Magistrate for a summons against any person for non-compliance with the Vaccination Acts, be made without the immediate and direct order of the Board, and to read and rescind any resolution to the contrary."

PROGRESS IN SWITZERLAND.-The contest against enforced vaccination in Switzerland is making encouraging progress under the auspices of the Swiss Anti-Vaccination League, which association was represented at the Congress by Herr Prieswerk. In, Geneva the most enlightened canton in Switzerland, and perhaps the most intelligent of all continental communities, there is no Compulsory Vaccination, though medical men have spared no effort by publishing misleading statistics to get it adopted. In the canton of Zurich, vaccination has been rapidly falling into disuetude. In 1851-2-3 88 per cent of the children were vaccinated, and the deaths of infants under one year were 28 in each 1000 births, while in 1876-7-8 when only 50 per cent were vaccinated, the deaths were reduced to 20 in each 1000 births, a diminution of 8 per cent. From Mr. W. Tebb's Address on the International Anti- Vaccination Congress at Paris.

VOL. III., No. 30.]

NOTES OF THE MONTH.

"A DISGRACE TO HUMANITY!"-Such is the London Society for the Abolition of Compulsory Vaccination according to Mr. Benjamin Barrow, Surgeon, Justice of the Peace, Mayor of Ryde, and President of the recent annual meeting of the British Medical Association. Mr. Barrow

thinks the law not stringent enough, and would leave it to no one's option to remain unvaccinated. Very well, say we: Make a beginning: call in the policeman to help the doctor. The project is often threatened: why not attempted? Mr. Barrow is, we apprehend, not very strong in the head, and is more apt at gush than matter-of-fact. His address to the Association

at Ryde was very "mixed"- -a curious jumble in which piety, poetry, and gossip were in intolerable excess of science. "Has any man," he asked, "approached Edward Jenner as a benefactor to the human race?" and described

him as "One who by self-sacrifice of every description, by an unparalleled perseverance, by an unflinching determination of many years' duration, at last convinced the world that the plague of small-pox was to be combated by the simple process of vaccination." Such words are sheer rant, answering to little or nothing in the story of Jenner.

It is amusing to observe the readiness with which the unscientific literary class flop upon their knees at anything in the name of Science. It is the etiquette of the vulgar among that numerous body. For example, a writer in the Christian World of 11th August, professes to have been "stimulated" by Pasteur's lecture at the Medical Congress, and inspired with the hope that "the force of many fearful diseases may be broken by vaccination." He then goes on to relate the current story of the fifty sheep, twenty-five of which, he says, were vaccinated" (meaning inoculated) and did not die, whilst twenty-five that had not been vaccinated died

66

[PRICE 1d.

To save

every one; adding, "If a fact like that does not convince, it would be vain to follow it up with arguments"! Convince whom? and convince of what? No one requires to be convinced that, the animal economy when under the influence of one sort of fever may not be susceptible of another sort; but when one fever goes off, another may come on-as those who demand frequent or annual vaccination for protection from small-pox clearly allow. Pasteur's sheep from the fever that killed them, it would, on his own theory, have sufficed to keep them from eating the grass growing over the bodies of their buried comrades; and surely it would be easier to do so than to incur the risk and trouble of their inoculation. From of old savants have been remarkable for achieving simple ends in roundabout ways and expecting the world to be astonished. Moreover the writer in the Christian World should know that it takes time to test reports like Pasteur's, and that the story of science is strewn with the wrecks of sensational discoveries and inventions.

DEEDS speak louder than words, and the resolution in favour of the adoption of what is called " 'calf-lymph" by the British Medical Association at Ryde, testifies forcibly to the knowledge of the evils of vaccination by the medical profession. It is, we may be sure, for no slight cause that men whose tendencies are strongly conservative, should recommend, the overthrow of the existing system of vaccination, and pronounce a virtual condemnation of the practice of the Medical Department of the Local Government Board, and the honeyed assurances of such officials as Dr. Stevens and Dr. Ballard.

Calf-lymph, if adopted, will in turn be found out; but in any case the agitation is a presage of good, and that truth long denied will have its way at last. Mr. Sclater-Booth was wiser than he knew when he predicted that the calf

lymph agitation, if not conducted with more discretion, would bring the whole vaccination fabric to the ground. Dr. Haughton did excellent service at Ryde in compelling an unwilling audience to listen to a variety of disagreeable facts; Dr. Carpenter of Croydon interrupting him with references to anti-vaccination societies, and Dr. Grimshaw of Dublin charging anti-vaccinators with causing the recent epidemics of small-pox! Such imputations are too absurd for discussion, but they serve to show how powerfully and how widely a little truth, firmly maintained, affects à great mass of error, fortified and consolidated though it be with all the prestige of the State.

VACCINATION has gone to the dogs, or rather returned to the dogs. The old notion has been revived that it saves dogs from distemper as well as men from small-pox. "Canine Vaccination" has made its appearance on the signboards of veterinary surgeons. "Anything to turn an honest shilling," as an enterprising vet remarked. If the craze should spread, we may perhaps receive an answer to the question, What is the substance inoculated that prevents distemper? Is it cow-pox? Is it small-pox inoculated on the cow after Ceely's fashion? Is it small-pox? Is it horse-pox? Is it horsepox cow-pox? Or is it an indescribable "blend" got off generations of human arms? It is idle to say that vaccination stops distemper, if the character of the vaccination be undefined. Vaccine lymph, as it is called, may be one of many things, and unless we are to walk into humbug with open eyes, we must know which. The answer long deferred and evaded by every dodge in the case of the human species, we may get by the dogs. They are vaccinated for distemper-With what?

MR. FAWCETT, the Postmaster General, is a man of more than average good sense, and yet in his Annual Report he makes himself responsible for the absurd assertion that the London postmen have been preserved from smallpox by reason of their re-vaccination. It goes without saying that the postman's calling is an extremely healthy one. He has abundant exercise in the open air, and, the discipline of the office being strict, his life is regular beyond that of the majority of working-men. Starting with a good constitution, maintained by exercise and sober habits, and past the age at which

small-pox is most prevalent, why should the postman be otherwise than exempt from what is comparatively a rare form of disease? It will be said, the postman has to deliver letters at infected houses, but at how many such houses? Small-pox at its worst, is never diffused over London, and the poor folk who suffer from the disease, have few dealings with the postoffice. Moreover, if the testimony of those who are responsible for small-pox hospitals is worth a straw, such a possibility as catching small-pox from the delivery of a letter at an infected house, is not worth consideration. In short, the assumption that postmen are probable subjects of small-pox, and are saved from it by vaccination, is one of those audacious fictions by which a lucrative superstition is maintained; and it is little to Mr. Fawcett's credit that he should blindly lend his authority to the imposture.

Ir suits vaccinators to speak of small-pox as equally diffused throughout the population of London, and as if all and sundry stood in common peril, and that safety was only to be found in periodical vaccination. On the contrary, we say that small-pox is conditioned in overcrowding and stench, and that whilst vaccination can be nothing but mischievous, security from the disease rests with those who dwell in wholesome circumstances. Nor will our contention be liable to dispute by those who carefully examine the facts as to the personal incidence of small-pox in times present and times past. Here for example is a summary from the Report of the Registrar-General of the place of death of the 475 persons who died of small-pox in London in the course of 1880— DEATHS FROM IN HOSPITALS

DISTRICTS.
North,
Central,

South,
East,

West,

Thus we see that of 475 no more than 50 were suffered to die in their own beds. The statement bears its lesson on its face. These were poor people from the poorest parishes, many of them homeless or of the pauper class. Mr. Marson started the doctrine that the risk of small-pox might be estimated by the number of vaccination marks; but the test was whimsical and the results hopelessly contradictory. We should understand much more about the risk of small-pox if we knew the rent per week paid by