Vaccination : its tested effects on health, mortality, and population. An essay / by Charles T. Pearce.

  • Pearce, Charles T. (Charles Thomas)
Date:
1868
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vaccination : its tested effects on health, mortality, and population. An essay / by Charles T. Pearce. 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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    The author of the following essay became deeply impressed with the importance of the subject fourteen years ago, by an accident alluded to in the essay, which accident made him sceptical of the value of vaccination. As medical referee to one of the largest and most prosperous life assurance corporations, he was led to observe the apparent large mortality in vaccinated persons from what is commonly called consumption, a great number being cut off in the flower of their age, while those, belonging to the same families, having had small-pox arrived at maturity. The very rare occurrence of phthisis in those who had had small-pox strengthened the idea which the author had conceived, that vaccina- tion, while it prevented small-pox, increased the danger to life when the subject was overtaken by other diseases.. The conclusions to which he came, from the data he collected, was, that vaccination generally was ineffici- ently performed; further inquiry, however, convinced him that vaccination is a crime against nature^ and ought not to be enforced. The Lancet^ when the first Compulsory Vaccination Bill was before Parliament, on the 21st May, 1853, thus expressed itself on vaccination: In the public mind, extensively, and in the profession itself, doubts are known to exist as to the efficacy and eligibility of