Report from the Select Committee on the Vaccine Board : with the minutes of evidence and an appendix. / Ordered, by the House of Commons, to be printed, 28 August 1833.

  • Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Select Committee on the Vaccine Board.
Date:
1833
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report from the Select Committee on the Vaccine Board : with the minutes of evidence and an appendix. / Ordered, by the House of Commons, to be printed, 28 August 1833. 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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    3a Charles Murray, to the extension of the practice of vaccination, I think, both in this country and Esq. throughout foreign countries, it would have the effect of increasing those difficulties ■ and doubts, if such a change were to take place, and the establishment was resolved 18 March i8a3- [^^q something of a less high character. 460. Are you aware of a single medical practitioner of any eminence and character in his profession, who doubts the protective nature of vaccination against small-pox ?—No, 1 am not aware of any. 461. Therefore those doubts exist in the very lowest characters of practitioners, if they exist at all?—If they are sincere; but the National Board is one great means of guarding against the improper conduct of this lower class of practitioners, who abound still so much in several parts of the country and in some of the towns. The great guard is the existence of this Board ; whereas, if this Board was abolished, I conceive that the number of those whose interest it is to disseminate the small- pox, for the purposes of their own private emolument, would increase; and I may here advert to something that is rather professional. But in three instances I was called upon some years ago to prosecute individuals who had disseminated the small- pox in some courts and alleys in London. The notion was general that any man had a right to inoculate his own child, and, if he pleased, to let it take the air, and thus with impunity to introduce the disease among others who were not protected. We knew that the law was different, and remonstrance being in vain, two or three examples were made, which are reported in the books. These prosecutions, two of which were against medical practitioners, were carried on, and the parties convicted of wilfully disseminating the small-pox ; and we advert to those cases now, in a printed paper, which I drew up, as a caution to country practitioners and others. There it was done under the authority of the Board, having the sanction of Govern- ment, and however wide the mischief might spread, supposing such a Board did not exist, there would be no security, although it might be taken up individually, if persons thought fit to do it. I make this explanation as one ground for showing that this Board must always continue to have great weight, and if it no longer existed, there would be great confusion upon the subject; and the practice, however efficiently it might be for a time carried on by another constituted Board, could not have the same beneficial effects upon the minds of persons, in the country in parti- cular, and in other parts of the kingdom. 462. You think the withdrawal of the sanction of Government, and the separa- tion of these high medical authorities, would operate as a discouragement ?—Yes ;, it would loosen the bond that exists between public opinion and the efficacy of vaccination exceedingly. 463. If the ground for withdrawing public support were stated to be, that great success that had attended the practice of vaccination, and had caused the removal of all those doubts which were the grounds originally for instituting the Board, would not that false impression on the part of the public be most likely prevented.'^ —I think decidedly not, 464. Not even if the removal of all those doubts were stated to be the ground for withdrawing the public grant?—I think it would not have a full effect, 465. Then you admit assigning such a reason would have the effect, to some extent at least, of preventing a false impression ?—Yes, for a time. 466. You ascribe the failure of the Jennerian Institution entirely to the want of the authority of a Board of Commissioners to sanction its regulations as to the mode of practice ?—To a great degree certainly ; it would have been carried on for a con- siderable time longer, even with the diminished funds which it possessed, because Dr. Jenner had the means of rallying so large a proportion of the public in support of it; but the insubordination of a single individual, as I consider it, produced such confusion as to occasion its discontinuance.