Forty-five years of registration statistics, proving vaccination to be both useless and dangerous. In two parts / By Alfred R. Wallace.

  • Wallace, Alfred Russel, 1823-1913.
Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Forty-five years of registration statistics, proving vaccination to be both useless and dangerous. In two parts / By Alfred R. Wallace. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    vaccinations had any effect on the disease, which ran its course and then died out Hke other epidemics. It has now been proved from the only complete series of official records that exist:— (i.)—That Small-pox has not decreased so much or so steadily as Typhus and allied fevers. (2.)—That the diminution of Small-pox mortality coincides with a diminished, instead of an increased efficiency of official vaccination. (3.)—That one of the most severe epidemics of Small-pox on record, within the period of accurate statistics, occurred after 33 years of official, compulsory, and penal vaccination. These three groups of facts give no support to the assertion that vaccination has diminished Small-pox mortality ; and it must always be remembered that we have actually no other extensive body of statistics on which to found our judgment. The utility or otherwise of vaccination is purely a question of statistics. It remains for us to decide, whether we will be guided by the only trustworthy statistics we possess, or continue blindly to accept the dogmas of an interested and certainly not infallible body of professional men, who once upheld inoculation as strongly as they now uphold vaccination.