Report on vaccination and its results, based on the evidence taken by the Commission during the years 1889-1897.

  • Great Britain. Royal Commission on Vaccination.
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on vaccination and its results, based on the evidence taken by the Commission during the years 1889-1897. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    much discussion. It rested, as we have seen, on the prac- tical unanimity of the medical profession in the opinion that universal primary vaccination would extinguish smallpox. It was argued that the plague of smallpox was such as to justify exceptional measures. It was believed that vaccina- tion had already come into such general vogue that only carelessness accounted for occasional neglect. And, finally, it was assumed that there were no dangers to be feared such as might perplex the consciences of parents. 283. The evidence we have received shows that the same position cannot be held now. Eminent medical men, some of whom have appeared before us, are now maintaining that the protection supposed to be afforded by vaccination, even though repeated, is almost entirely illusory. Some allow, indeed, that the disturbance of the constitution set up by vaccinia may during its brief continuance prevent the deve- lopment of smallpox from inoculation.1 But in their opinion this protection is so exceedingly brief in its duration that it is of no appreciable value as a prophylactic against epidemics. Whether that opinion be scientifically justified or not, the fact that it is held by medical men of great scientific repu- tation has recently done much to encourage resistance to the law. Where doctors differ it seems difficult to resist the claim of parents to be allowed to choose for themselves which opinion they will follow.2 284. In 1853 there were few or no signs of opposition amongst the population when called upon to submit to the law. There was a general acquiescence in the assumption that the abatement of the virulence of smallpox from the commencement of the nineteenth century had been due almost entirely to the voluntary and partial adoption of vaccination. ^ Those who neglected it were reasonably sus- pected of doing so, not from any conscientious conviction, but from mere carelessness and indifference to social welfare' It seemed right in the opinion of the time, therefore, that they should be compelled to adopt an apparently harmless precaution, which was believed only to need universal en- 1 11,843; 11,848. » 11,855.