Some leading arguments against compulsory vaccination / Issued by The London Society for the Abolition of Compulsory Vaccination.

  • London Society for the Abolition of Compulsory Vaccination.
Date:
1887
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Some leading arguments against compulsory vaccination / Issued by The London Society for the Abolition of Compulsory Vaccination. 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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    so eminent as Mr. Brudenell Carter, when lie says, writing in the Medial Examiner of May 24, 1877:— I think that a large proportion of the cases of apparently inherited syphilis are in reality vaccinal; and that the syphilis in these cases does not show itself until the age of from eight to ten years, by which time the relation between cause and effect is apt to be lost sight of. (2.) Mr. Ritchie here tramples cruelly on the work of his own Department. For in the recently-published Extracts from the Annual Report of the Medicai Officer for 1 884/' in a foot- note to page vii. we read these words :— The appearance of increase dates from thirty years ago, since luhich time the rate of mortality registered as from syphilis has been practically stationaryNow for infants under one year of age this practically stationary mortality is fully recorded in the Parlia- mentary Return ( Deaths, England and Wales, No. 392, Sess. 2, 1880), and these are the figures so far as that Return goes:— Years. Deaths per Million Births. Years. Deaths per Million Births. 1855 912 1867 1,615 1856 881 1868 1,733 1857 989 1869 1,760 185S 1,044 1870 1,794 1859 1,128 1871 1,652 1860 1,121 1872 1,707 1861 1,146 1873 1,658 1862 1.217 1874 1,736 1863 1,351 1875 1,827 1864 1,471 1876 1,780 1865 1,544 1877 1,746 1866 1,565 1878 1,851 thus showing that this syphilis mortality has rather more than doubled itself among infants, while Mr. Ritchie now adds to our sense of security and completes the demolition of his own Medical Officer, by blandly assuring us that bad as the case is among infants, it is far worse for children up to the age of five. It is a sickening thought that the lives and happiness of thousands of children are by law placed every day at the mercy of such work as this. Again, Mr. Ritchie has recently repeated in another form the blunder about the Statistical Society, into which he was innocently led by a want yet greater than his own of know- ledge of the matter in hand. There never was, as Mr. Ritchie at first asserted there had been, an inquiry by that Society into the Vaccination Question, nor has there been, as Mr. Ritchie now alleges, any discussion of the Vaccination Question by that Society within the last two years. The last discussion of