version according to me.
I think Quirky wanted this too.
Warning. A tome: 20 pages in word for this post:
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I have confined the majority of this history to England, (with brief mention of Europe dates early on) because England is the “home” of smallpox vaccination, and it was here, and in Europe or elsewhere, where the major developments took place in the context of the vaccine. I am not ignoring New Zealand, or American history. I just don’t feel that either is relevant regarding the history of the vaccine in relation to the disease.
Background to Smallpox disease and vaccine history.
In order to understand the history of Smallpox, it needs to be taken in the context of the conditions of the day.
When we consider the way of lives of our British ancestors, the wonder is not that epidemics carried off so many, but that so many survived to tell the tale. When the last great plague visited England, in 1666, the public authorities were slowly waking up to the fact that a little public spring cleaning would not go amiss, with the practice of using ditches and rivers as offal and general rubbish tips being forbidden. Throwing refuse out of doors and windows was not encouraged, and the fine for being caught was 12 pence…
But even so, that understanding came slowly… if you drive through England now, you may still see houses with bricked in windows, and might wonder why that was. Because in 1695, the Government decided that a window tax (windows were the latest fashion statement) would be a good way to earn some freebie money. The tax was finally removed in 1803. Naturally enough, the public’s response had been to brick up most windows, which in the context of fresh air and disease was probably not helpful. Though it is doubtful if people in those days would even have considered fresh air a necessity. From the reading of history, it would seem that both air and light were considered superfluous to requirements.
Even the upper class women, with their monstrous hairdo’s would go nowhere without their back-scratchers. Washing of the body was considered very dangerous, and to have clean clothes even more so. Such things as bathrooms and toilets were not even considered by the architects of the day. In stately houses, the servants removed the bed-chamber potties, and used a bucket under the stairs. I have yet to find out what was done with the contents therein….
Until a period considerably later than the reign of Queen Elizabeth the first, flours were “cleaned” by strewing fresh rushes on top of the old, which had gradually become sodden with dirt, bones and refuse from both animals and humans that accumulated. There is no doubt that were we to return to the “good old days” we would again be plagued by epidemics of many descriptions..
In 1762, ac Act was passed for removal of overhanging sign-boards, and waterspouts, which could pour filth on people in the streets beneath. In 1766, granite pavements replaced soil soaked with sewage, and during the next 50 years, most of London was paved. (Though they still had trouble with puddles and mess, because the concept of drainage was not yet understood) By 1780, Dr Black states that many streets had been widened, sewers made, there was a better water supply and less crowding. Wider streets and better ventilated houses (once the window tax was removed) and better roads were constructed so that fresh food could enter the city. From 1801-1821, many city inhabitant were moved to more outlying districts. “This dispersion of the former city population over a much larger suburban area was, in all probability, the most powerful of the various sanitary causes which led to the diminution of mortality, both general and from zymotic diseases.” (“The Wonderful Century” Alfred Russell Wallace, London Swan Sonnenschein, 1901)
Diet moved away from bread, beer and salted meat towards fish, potatoes, and fresh meat though that was also partly frowned on…
Plague, Black death and cholera responded quickly to this programme, but Smallpox did not, in my opinion, because of the steady increase not only in the immunisation programme, but the continuation of inoculation in the remoter areas where vaccination wasn’t available. Vaccination was primarily, arm to arm, or made by collecting vaccine scabs till the jar was full, adding water, making a paste, and that was the new vaccine…..
But it was not taken up wholeheartedly, because as the down-side became evident, ordinary people became very sceptical.
In 1854, Smallpox vaccination became compulsory. Before this time, the highest death rates notified was 2,000 for any 2 yr period. The death rate climbed until in 1870 – 71, 23,062 people died in England and Wales.
In Europe in the countries where smallpox vaccination was practiced, the death toll followed the same pattern. In 1870-71 in Germany, 124,948 people died, and according to the German records ALL had been vaccinated. The records stated “In Berlin alone, no less that 17,038 persons had smallpox after vaccination, and 2,884 of them died.
The compiler of Statistics of the Registrar General in UK, Dr William Farr stated “Smallpox attained its maximum mortality after vaccination was introduced. The mean annual smallpox mortality per 10,000 population from 1830 – 1865 was at the rate of 2.04. After compulsory vaccination in 1871, and death rate was 10.24. In 1872 the death rate was 8.33, and this after the most laudible efforts to extend vaccination by legislative enactments”.
These statistics started a medical and political riot, as the rich and poor alike complained about the rise in death rates, and key doctors started to speak out against vaccination. Enlightened councils like Leicester and Gloucester turned their back of central Government laws and decided to implement their own plans. London authorities were none too happy either, and you could compile volumes of statements made by medical officers of health, doctors, specialists and –politicians, all calling for changes and NOT vaccination.
The result was the Public Health act of 1875, which resulted in new revamped sewage systems, proper drainage systems, cemented joints in pipes, and in general making the human pig styes more habitable. The work was gradual for many places, as it was done as and when by pick and shovel. In Europe, the first world war helped things along by virtue of the razing many cities, and having to start again from scratch.
In England, progress was slow and steady, with the last major slum areas of London being done by courtesy of the German bombing raids…
The value of the Public Health Act is best seen in the progress of typhoid in the civil population of England. Typhoid had not responded greatly to the health measures prior to1875. The annual death rate from typhoid fever for the 5 years immediately preceding the passing of the Public Health Act 1875, was 373 per million, but from the passing of that act, in each area as the provision were abided by, the typhoid rates dropped dramatically.
So this is a potted background with which to view the history of smallpox vaccination and disease.
Smallpox inoculation is first recorded in china in the Long Qing reign (1567-1572)
In 1673 variolation against smallpox appeared in Denmark, and in 1778 on recommendation of the medical fraternity, two inoculation houses were established by the king in the Capital.
In Italy, inoculation was secretly practiced by the Neopolitans from early times. It was freely performed by nurses who inoculated infants entrusted to their care, without the knowledge of the parents.
In 1722, Dr Wright, a surgeon of Wales refers to inoculation against smallpox in the British Isles as “a very ancient custom”.
The first record of inoculation in France appears in 1712, and in 1763, a fatal epidemic of smallpox in that country wiped out a large part of the population; the government attributed it to inoculation and banned the practice. Five years later after intense lobbying by the medical profession, the decree was rescinded and by the end of the 18th century was again a common practice.
The first record of inoculation in Ireland appears in 1723 in Dublin. A doctor inoculated 25 people; 3 died, and it was abandoned for a time.
Most literature attributes the introduction of inoculation in England to Lady Wortley Montagu, who introduced it into entland in 1721 on her return from Turky where it was also common practice.
At the time of its introduction in Great Britain it was hailed as the greatest of medical discoveries, and the praise lavished upon it equals anything we hear today from those who promote vaccination:
Dr Monteith related (“Report of the Newcastle Dispensary, from its Foundation in 1777”, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1878.) “By the year 1777 the arguments, in favour of variolation, had so far triumphed over the habits and prejudices of the profession that there is no instance mentioned in our reports of any medical man in Newcastle opposing it. It is always spoken of as one of the best established facts in medical science. With the general public, the case was different. Their prejudices were as strong as ever, and they exhibited a horror of variolation which would satisfy the most ardent anti-vaccinator. To combat these prejudices, various means were tried, - sermons from the pulpit, pathetic exhortations in the newspaper, etc… In 1801 there had been in all 3,268 operated on.”
Yet, this very “best established facts in medical science” was outlawed, and branded as a crime in 1840.
The first record or innoculation in Germany is 1724. Once again, after many deaths in Berlin it was banned for a period, then reinstated.
In 1754, Peverani introduced smallpox inoculation to Rome, and the same course ensued.
In 1721, Cotton Mather introduced it to areas in the states. By decree of “the Select Men of the Town of Baron, June 22, 1721, the practise was condemned in the most vituperative language possible.
Edward Jenner
Lancet, Feb 2, 1929, page 233.
“A dreadful amount of nonsense was perpetually talked about vaccination, and that was the difficulty. In Jenner’s classical paper no mistake was omitted that could possible have been made, and there was a good deal of evidence that Jenner had been a rogue.”
So now we come to our friend Edward Jenner born on May 16th, 1749, son of a Berkely country parson. Both his parents died when he was 5. Jenner was apprenticed at 13 to Sodbury surgeon named Daniel Ludlow for 7 years. At 21, he was sent for 2 years as the first resident student to the great surgeon and innovator of contemporary medicine, Dr John Hunter of London, working at the newly established St. George’s Hospital. At 23 he returned to his native village and started to practice as a surgeon and apothecary. He continued for several years as a plain, unqualified country doctor. (Scary to think that this is all they had to learn….)
He had a bent for natural history, and a tendency to rather vague speculation, but little application, being lazy by nature. Hunter incessantly urged him to make observations on the winter temperatures of hedgehogs, but the sole outcome of years of messing around, was a brief record of four temperatures of hedgehogs, 2 in winter, 1 in summer, and I at a season not stated, which Hunter introduced in half a dozen lines into his paper on “animal heat” when he reprinted it in 1786.
In 1776 he made his bid for fame by sending a paper called “The Natural History fo the Cuckoo” to the Royal Society, but on June 19th, 1786, Jenner claimed to have seen a newly hatched cuckoo pitching a newly hatched sparrow out of the nest. He asked for the return of his manuscript, and recorded this, as well as other observations. The revised paper was then printed in Philosophical Tansactions. With Hunter’s influence, and considerable lobbying, he was elected F.R.C in January 1789.
On the basis of this newly acquired status, and with Hunter’s assistance, he applied in 1790 to St Andrews University for a doctoret, which was agreed to in 1791.
Shortly after this, Jenner inherited a considerable sum of money, sold his practice and spent his time between Berkely and Cheltenham amusing himself “with extemporaneous amusements not intended for the press.”
On 14th may, 1786, James Phipps, a boy of 8, was vaccinated with matter from the hand of an infected dairymaid classified as casual cowpox. After 6 weeks he repeated the process, this time with matter from a boy who had smallpox. James Phipps was declared immune to smallpox, but he died at the age of 20 of pulmonary consumption, having been inoculated over 20 times (Baron’s life of Jenner, Vol 2)
Two year later, he vaccinated his own son, then a year and a half old, with swine-po, and between that year and 1792, he repeatedly inoculated him with smallpox. This son was always delicate in health, and died in his 21st year, of pulmonary consumption.
In 1797, Jenner sent to the Royal Society a manuscript entitled “An inquiry into the Natural History of a Disease know in Gloucestershire by the Name of Cowpox.” Which was rejected on the ground that “perusal of his cases and experiments produced no conviction whatsoever” and he received a friendly admonition in reply, that as he had gained some reputation by his former paper, it was not advisable to present this one, which would injure his established credit.
In 1798, Jenner revised and extended his paper which he then privately published in a pamphlet form with a new title, more amplified than its contents:
“An Enquiry into the causes and effects of the Variolae Vaccinae, A Disease, discovered in some of the western counties of England, particularly Gloucestershire and known by the name of cowpox.”
In this paper he surmises that smallpox generated from horse-grease and by accidental circumstances. He also asserted that measles and scarlet fever with ulcerous sore throats and spotted skin came from the same source……
After his original paper was rejected, two other doctors joined the scene, both of whom Jenner later suspected of trying to play him off the stage. George Pearson, M.D., F.R.S., was a College Physician, who reviewed Jenner’s work with mixed conclusion, but was considered to be an eminent doctor. The second was Dr William Woodward, who died in 1805, also a college Physician, but not so “eminent”, though a specialist in smallpox and “a skilled inoculator”.
An outbreak in a dairy in Grey’s Inn Lane gave them the break they needed and when the Royal Society skeptics saw the milkmaid’s hands, they decided that perhaps cowpox did exist, and agreed to Woodward giving cowpoxing a trial. His results however, almost put an end to vaccination. Of his 450 cowpoxed cases, one died, and a great many had hundres, and one or two thousands of pustules on their bodies. Only 2.5ths had no pustules, and a quarter had been severely ill. His recommendation was that for the purpose of inoculation matter should only be taken from the milder cases. While he considered and excluded contamination of the lancets, he later admitted the probability that his subjects had been simultaneously cowpoxed and smallpoxed.
When he found that Dr Woodville was about to publish his results he entreated him, both personally and by letter, “Not to do a thing that would so disturb the progress of vaccination.”
Annoyed at his peers rebuke, he decided to use his elevated status to his advantage. He succeeded in persuading a number of aristocratic ladies to become amateur vaccinators among their tenantry and dependant. The method was novel and highly sensations, described by some as “a pleasing diversion for the fashionable world” Under the protection of the Earl and Countess of Berkely, he openly defied the medical professions. Lady Charloote Wrottesley was one of the earliest devotees, and vaccinated thousands in Staffordshire.
His royal friends, to authenticate their new-found “diversion” introduced him into the King’s court where the King, impressed with his fervour, recommended the Prime Minister covey to Parliament in 1802 His Majesty’s desire that a benefaction of 10,000 pounds be paid to Jenner from the public purse. When the Bill came up, the royal princes attended in its support. To the parliament of the day, an intimation of the Royal Wish in a matter of this kind was decisive. Jenner promised the Monarchy and Parliament, that the vaccination would put an end to smallpox forever.
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Even by 1802, there were many reports of disastrous results from the so-called cow-poxing, which in itself needs to be explained. Cowpox, which is not a natural disease in that it never occurs on calves, yearlings or bulls, but only on milking cows, was presumed by Jenner to be smallpox of the cow. Jenner held that the origin of both cowpox and smallpox was to be found in a third process called horse grease, considered by some to be a type of horse syphilis, by others to be a type of wasting disease or consumption.
It was also repeatedly pointed out to him that cowpox was not a natural disease, and many doctors stated that it was a disease communicated TO the cows, from the syphilitic sores on the hands of the milkers….
Even though in 1802, the medical profession were dubious, but on orders pushed by the royalty, the Royal Jennerian Institute was set up with the grant from parliament. But neither as a director of the Institute, or as a West End Physician, was he a success. He quarrelled with the Institute staff, and in 1804 when the second report of the Jennerian Institute admitted having seen smallpox in previously successfully cowpoxed individuals, the resultant tow all but collapsed the Institute.
The result of his London practice was an annual loss of over 1,000 pounds. His professional colleagues were very ready to speak of Jenner in the highest terms, but were less ready to admit him into their innermost circles. The University of Oxford took some coaxing to make him a doctor, and the College of Physicians would have nothing to do with him, or his cowpoxing.
Meantime, Jenner’s friends had established the Royal Jennerian society in 1803, which at first was well supported, but trouble came quickly in the form of Jenner, who quarrelled with the resident Inoculator Dr Walker. He had substantial support, and seceded, starting another association called the London Vaccine Institution.
Henner appointed a young Irish surgeon as Walker’s successor, but he neglected his duties, and in 1813, what remained was incorporated into Walkers Institute. Walker continued his work, in spite of fierce opposition from Jenner and his friend, and the Institute was still in existence in 1866 under Dr John Epps.
So again, with the help of his royal friends, he persuaded the English Government to give him another 20,000 pounds. But this time a National Vaccine Institute was set up with Sire Lucas Papys as chairman of the Board, which declared to Jenner “You, sire, are to be the whole and sole director. We are to be considered as nothing: what do we know of vaccination.” but what they did do, was to prevent Jenner from having any power in a bid to forestall the previously noted “disaster”, so he resigned within a year.
(Following this, the Institute was funded with each person having a salary of 100 pounds a year, and a yearly endowment of 3,000 pounds per year with which to vaccinate the poor, but in 1822 it was discovered that this all went to pay salaries, rent and print, and other sundries, so it was decreased to 2,500 pounds, and again in 1833 to 2,200 pounds per year.)
In 1805, Jenner was organising relays of vaccinated emigrant children, in order to supply both United States and India with “vaccine”.
By this time the Royal college of Surgeons were not well disposed towards him either, having ascertained from their members that the smallpox vaccination had considerable difficulties, and often did not work.
In 1810, the London Medical Observer, (Volume 6, 1810), joined in the vocal fray, reporting: “535 cases of smallpox after vaccination; some having been done by Jenner himself) with their names and authorities reporting them, and details of 97 fatal cases of smallpox amongst vaccinated with 150 cases of serious injury arising from vaccination among whom were 10 medical me with their names and addresses including two professors of anatomy who had suffered from the operation in their own families.”
Another extract by Dr Maclean in the same medical journal states “Very few deaths from cowpox appear in the Bills of Mortality, owing to the means which have been used to suppress a knowledge of them. Neither were deaths, diseases and failures transmitted in great abundance from the country, not because they did not happen, but because some practitioners were interested in not seeing them and others who did see them were afraid of announcing what they knew.”
There were many other medical articles at that time, saying much the same thing, in different journals.
Jenner’s response?
He blamed the inexpertise of vaccinators who “are not sufficiently acquainted with the disease to enable them to discriminate with due accuracy between the perfect and imperfect pustule.
Yet in 1804, he had said that anyone could do it as it was “not very difficult to learn.”
For some time, his close friends who he had vaccinated, had escaped lightly and retained their faith in him, but on May 26, 1811, the Hon. Robert Grosvenor, whom Jenner had vaccinated himself, and declared immune, feel seriously ill with smallpox. At this point, the public really turned on him.
Depressed and upset at the public outcry, Jenner wrote to a friend saying “I am on the lookout to be able to make a fortune, and to appease the public.”
As the numbers of vaccine failures increased and people became disillusioned, one of the main jobs of the National Vaccine Institute was to explain these. One letter which Jenner wrote to his friend and follower, R dunning, who was a surgeon said “This security given to the constitution by vaccine inoculation is exactly equal to that given by the variolous (smallpox). To expect more from it would be wrong. As failures in the latter are constantly presenting themselves, nearly from its commencement to the present time, we must expect to find them in the former also.”
So much for his declaration to the king and parliament, that one does would provide immunity for life.
Jenner died on January 26, 1823 of a stroke at the age of 73.
Jenner, who had not been able to keep a cowpox strain going, had managed to establish a strain from horse-grease, which was used in Europe but forcefully banned in England by those who knew better. This strain was commented upon in 1798 (an Inquiry into the causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae) in which he said “We have seen that the virus from the Horse is not to be relied upon as rendering the system secure from variolous infection, but that the matter produced by it on the nipple of the cow is perfectly so.” (page 37)
Jenner had used and supplied this strain for the purpose of vaccination, if you take a letter from Dr John Thomas in 1820, who says:
“the vaccine virus used in Edinburgh for a series of eighteen years produced exactly the same appearances as are delineated by Dr Jenner as characteristic of Cowpox. The appearances of the vaccine vesicle produced..agree exactly with those exhibited by vesicles produced by inocuation, with the more recent equine matter with which I have been favoured by Dr Jenner.”
In 1836, several different lymphs were used throughout Britain and the world, although no-one knew exactly what they were from. Some were said to be horsegrease, some goat pox, some swine pox, and some smallpox passed once through the cow. Woodville’s vaccine was used worldwide, but by 1935, so many doctors had complained at the results it was felt necessary to go back to the cow.
In France, the director of the Paris Institute formalized matter taken from the hands of a milker called Bousquet, from the “Passy” cow.
In Bristol in 1838, Dr Estlin produced a new vaccine from the hands of milkers, and in the same year, and the two following years – 1838 – 1841, Ceely of Aylesbury found half a dozen distinct occurrences of cowpox in the dairy farms of his district. His account of the natural history of the cowpox and its effects when inoculated into the human are is the most comprehensive and candid one ever given.
So it is thought that Bousquet, Estlin, and Ceely were the chief “stockists” of “original lymph” vaccine after Woodville.
In 1854, by the time smallpox vaccination had become compulsory by law, it was done using original lymph, vaccinating one person, and then it was continued one of two ways. Either a person with a pox scab was used, arm to arm, with an unvaccinated person, or lots of scabs were put into an open glass fruit jar. Once that was full, it was made into an emulsion with water and distributed as new lymph. That there was considerable doubt as to what was in the vaccine is illustrated by the following comments, extracted from medical literature:
Dr Brundenell Carter, St George’s Hospital, Lond: “… a large proportion of apparently inherited syphilis are in reality vaccinal; these cases do not show until the age of from 8 – 10 years by which time the relation between cause and affect are lost sight of.”
Dr Ballard, vaccine inspector, English Government: “..there can be no doubt that the vaccine virus and the syphilitic virus may both be drawn at the same time, upon the same instrument, from one and the same vesicle. The vesicle which is thus capable of furnishing both vaccine and syphilitic virus may be present, prior to being opened, all the normal and fully developed characters of the true Jennerian vesicle as ordinarily met with.”
Dr J.M. Peebles, commenting on 17 school girls who developed syphilis after vaccination at Lebus, near Frankfurt.” The vaccinator report stated that the vaccinations were from regular, official calf-lymph – absolutely pure, glycerinated, sterilized, all germs but the vaccine sporule, destroyed, hermetically sealed until used…”
There is an interesting point to make here, that a new water drainage system of London was completed in 1865. Prior to that, it had still been a somewhat dour place to go through. Following this, there was a marked decline in the overall death rate and in deaths from zymotics, especially fevers (typhus, enteric, simple) and diphtheria.
In 1866, following further complaints in Europe, the Beaugency cow provided the source of much of the calf lymph of the Dutch, Belgian and other vaccine farms. This was claimed to be “the best stock” as all the others they held to be fraudulent, or spurious forms (of which many were named) and were thought to be Equipe-pox stock (horse grease) swine-pox or goat pox stock.
The problem was that after 1836, most of the stock got so crossed and intermixed that on-one could tell what they were using. Even the people who promoted the Beaugency stock admitted that it was of unknown origin.
The two other stocks which some held to be “genuine” were Equine-pox stock, and Human stock. Equine pox stock, which Jenner had held was the stock that all genuine cow-pox came from, produced exactly the same vesicles as cowpox, and Loy of Whitby used this exclusively, as did Sacco of Milan, who sent some to De Carro of Vienna to use, which he did.
Jenner on 23rd July 1813 had recorded “Equine virus, which I have been using from arm to arm for these two months past, without observing the smallest deviation in the progress and appearance of the pustules from those produced by vaccine.”
And 17 May 1817 “too matter from Jane King (equine direct) for the National Vaccine Establishment. The pustules beautifully correct.’
The Human pox stock was developed by Dr Thiele in Kazan (Russia) who pronounced that HE had produced “the genuine vaccine disease by passing human smallpox matter through a cow and using it as vaccine matter in 1836. Cely of Aylesbury, not to be outdone, repeated Thiele’s experiments, and pronounced them a success, and held them to be better than that of cowpox origin.
Badcock, a dispensing chemist in Brighton took up this practice of passaging smallpox through cows, while other vaccinators said that it was a delusion to conclude that inoculating cows with smallpox every produced anything but smallpox. There are no accounts of Badcocks work, but he summarised the results in the Pall Mall Gazette, saying “By careful and repeated experiments I produced, by the inoculation of the cow with smallpox, a benign lymph of a non-infectious and highly protective character. My lymph has now been in use at Brighton for forty years and is at the present time, the principal stock of lymph employed there, being that exclusively used by the public vaccinators”
At Boston, US, the same kind of lymph was raised with stock from France, and put to use in 1852. But at Attleborough, Mass., the same experiments had led to a disastrous epidemic of smallpox.
Jan 23, 1880 :- “ Experiments were conducted which showed that smallpox could be induced in the horse or the cow by variolation, BUT the variolus matter could never turn into horse-grease in the horse, or cowpox in the cow (M. Chauveau, Report of Committee of the Academie of Sciences.) All experiments consistently failed.
(Even in the early 1900’s in parts of India, inoculated cows were led along the streets from door to door, and a bit of matter was scraped off for the vaccination of residents)
In 1871, when public disquiet was on the up, Lancet, July 15, 1871 had this to say:
“the deaths from smallpox have assumed the proportions of a plague. Over 10,00 lives have been sacrificed during the past year in England and Wales. In London, 5,641 deaths have occurred since Christmas. Of 9,392 patients in London Smallpox hospitals, no less than 6,854 have been vaccinated i.e.73% Taking a mortality of 17.5% of those attacked, and the deaths this year in the whole country of 10,000, it will follow that more than 122,000 vaccinated persons have suffered from smallpox! Can we greatly wonder that the opponents of vaccination should point to such statistics as evidence of the failur of the system? It is necessary to speak plainly on this matter.”
That year, the House of commons held a committee hearing on vaccination, where many doctors gave evidence against vaccination. One was Dr William Collins, who like many others declared that he had:
“known people who had been vaccinated and re-vaccinated suffer dreadfully from smallpox, two of whom died in the most hideous confluent form after successful vaccination and re-vaccination; one of the three times vaccinated.”
In the epidemic of 1870-72, 44,840 people died, after 70 years of vaccination and 18 years of compulsion.
Also as a matter of interest the article also pointed out that 96% of births were officially registered as vaccinated. AND that a person’s word for being vaccinated was not accepted. The smallpox hospital only accepted that a person was vaccinated, if they had an old scar which was totally distinguishable from the newly forming vesicles. Inspection was done by official “vaccinators” during the progress of the disease. Therefore, if a person, say had confluent, or haemorrhagic smallpox, such a scar would be unlikely to be found. Therefore, the percentage of vaccinated could well have been higher than the Lancet stated.
This was in fact discussed thoroughly at the Royal commission in 1886, when it was admitted that in nearly all fatal cases, the profuse eruption his the vaccination scars if they existed, and these cases were all put down as unvaccinated, and with unreliable observations such as these, it was impossible to gauge the true numbers of those vaccinated. (Parliamentary papers 1896, XLVII, p 179)
Another interesting thought to ponder from the historical data was that in London, prior to vaccination, in the worst smallpox outbreak, only 2 % of the population contracted smallpox, and of those 25% died. If there had been vaccinators there at that time, would they have credited this 99.5% of the population, who did not contract smallpox, as solely due to their vaccine?
Dr Geo Wyld of London, held at that time to be a man of impeachable integrity and the authority of that time on vaccination stated in the London Daily News, February 17, 1877:
“I find that many medical men are under the false impression that all we require to do is to inoculate a heifer with smallpox matter and thus get a supply of vaccine lymph. This might become productive of disastrous consequences. Smallpox inoculation of the heifer produces not vaccinia, but a modified smallpox capable of spreading smallpox amongst human beings by infection.”
It soon became very evident world wide, in both lay literature and many of the main medical journals, that vaccination did nothing to either halt or cause less serious infections of smallpox. . By 1885, it was obvious to all in the official statistics, that there was a direct correlation. The medical people wrangled, the average person rebelled, especially when the registrar generals statistics were made public and showed that the majority of people who had died of smallpox from 1850 – 1872 were vaccinated.
A huge outcry amongst the public ensued Over 100 union parished ripped up the local vaccination ordinances in 1872, and instead called in the Sanitary engineers, and started putting in sewage disposal plans, rubbish dispose, proper corpse disposal and jointed pipes to ensure uncontaminated water. Those were the measures officially adopted under the Public Health Act in 1875. the offical records states that those parishes were the ones that by and large escaped the 1878 smallpox epidemic. This, combined with dietary measure initiated in the early 1800’s, along with surveillance, quarantined, and containment of all “imported” cases from outside local areas did what no vaccines could. (It was not until about 70 years later that World Health personnel realised the truth of quarantine, containment and isolation.)
While the unions who had ripped up the vaccination ordinances and got on with real public health measures, the debate continued. 1878 Parliament records show Sir Thomas Chambers as saying “You cannot show that vaccination has reduced deaths, or saved a single life. There may be no smallpox, but the disappearance of smallpox is by no means equivalent to the reduction of mortality.
In 1880, the Registrar General had got tired of the debate, and in his 1880 official report state that:
“The decennium which closed with the year 1880 was one of lower mortality in London than any of the preceding decennial periods. These facts are strong evidence that the sanitary effort of recent years have not been unfruitful. …. The fixing our attention on total morality, we take into consideration its causes. For it will be found that the saving of life was almost entirely due to diminished mortality from causes whose destructive activity is especially amenable to sanitary interference – namely the so-called zymotic diseases. The death rate from fever fell nearly 50%, scarletina and diphtheria 33%. One disease alone in this class showed exceptionally a rise, and no inconsiderable one. This was smallpox, which owing to the two great outbreaks of 1871 – 2, and 1878-8 gave a death-rate nearly 50% ABOVE its previous average.”
Parliamentary response to his comments varied from Dr W.B. Carpenter who said that the protective power of vaccination was only useful when the danger is absent, and of little value in an epidemic…another went further and said that were it not for such outbreaks, the vaccination record would be quite satisfactory, which prompted yet another to comment that such statements reminded him of the bankrupt who said he would be perfectly solvent were it not for confounded losses!
From 1857 onwards, many of the “syphilis” doctors constantly remarked in public at the increase in syphilis rates, and how it was, in their opinions, carried in the vaccine.
Many practitioners testified before a Parliamentary committee in 1871 that they had personally, unwittingly, transferred syphilis from lymph supplied by the vaccine institute. At this same committee, Dr Bakewell, Vaccinator General of Trinidad, testified that he had seen both leprosy and syphilis communicated by Vaccination, and he considered that smallpox vaccination was the main reason that leprosy had become to common in Trinidad. Sir Ronald Marting M.E., backed up his statements about the spread of Leprosy.
Huges’ Practice of Medicine by R.J. E. Scott, published in New York by P. Blakiston’s Son and Co (no date on the photocopy) said on page 71 “Syphilis and tetanus have been transmitted by vaccination: that tuberculosis and leprosy have been transmitted by vaccination has been claimed but never proved.”
Parliament sent Mr William Tebb to all 5 continents to investigate the matter, and his conclusions, published in 1891 in a publication called “the Public Health, Leprosy and Vaccination” confirmed that everywhere that leprosy had increased, had synchronised with the enforcement of smallpox vaccination.
The Hawaiian Government invited Dr Edward E Arning, and eminent bacteriologist, to spend 1883 – 1885 in Hawaii, investigating the cause and spread of Leprosy. He repeatedly found the bacillae leprae in vaccine lymph, and in the lymph and crusts after the vaccination of lepers. He attributed the remarkable increase to general and repeated vaccination of the inhabitants, and was supported by a number of medical practitioners in Hawaii, as well as several presidents of the Board of health in Honolulu, who had also made this subject one of careful investigation.
Not only were these reports backed by other doctors such as Sir Erasmus Wilson, Professor W.T.Gardiner, Dr Tilbury Fox, Dr Carter Superintendent of Leper asylum Trinidad, but things were about to take a turn for the worse.
Cancer specialists started to comment on the high number of seamen who were starting to get cancerous lesions in their vaccine scars…
In the mid 1880’s, the Encyclopaedia Britannica had commissioned him to do a piece on vaccinations. He was pro-vaccine at that time, and chosen because of his meticulous research abilities and honesty. But he was stunned at what he was finding in his research. He wrote in the 1889 9th Edition “The real affinity of cowpox is not smallpox, but syphilis.” He goes on to detail his assertions with photographs, facts and concluded by saying “Vaccination is a grotesque superstition.”
He also reviewed all the works on smallpox, and commented that Cowpox when “undisturbed by the milkers hands” has no existence in the originating cow; it is the persistent irritation that makes it a pox.” He also commented that the girls transferred it from their “filthy hands” to their faces.
There was also a huge increase in childhood eczema, which Creighton discusses, saying” The widespread belief that much of the eczema dates from vaccination is not by any means to be dismissed as a mere fancy. The skin-disorders that followed vaccination in the first years of the practice were described by Birth and others to be new in type.” The publishing of his article and his evidence at the enquiry had predictable results. After such an impertinent display, in the words of a colleague “He was dropped into oblivion”
Yet on his death, was hailed as “A giant of his time”.
And such was the general pitch of public discontent in the early 1890’s, that the medical profession had to do something. What they did was two things.
1)They set up the General Medical Council in 1896. Officially, its purpose was to register only bona-fide, upstanding doctors who the public could trust. Those doctors were registered, and only those doctors could practice medicine. But in actuality, the GMC silenced dissenters, since they simply struck them off the register, or refused to register them, if they would not toe the line.
2)As a palliative to the concerned doctors, they set up, in 1896. the Royal Commission into Vaccination, where, according to the GMC, all material would be honestly and openly studied.
All the evidence mentioned including the records of all the parishes refusing to implement compulsory vaccination was studied, but rejected. But the evidence exists today, in the form of the Royal Commission on Vaccination. There are two reports, the official one stating vaccination to be superduper clean and a world saver, and the dissenting report which accurately stated evidence given. There is also Minutes of Evidence In British House of commons “Reports from Commissioners, Inspectors & Others”. I don’t know how many volumes there are, but there appear to be many!
Dr Charles Creighton, who wrote the EB article, gave extensive evidence at the hearing, and his evidence is in volume 15!
Another interesting medical person who presented evidence to the Royal Commission was Professor Adolf Vogt, Professor of Hygiene and of Sanitary Statistics 1877 – 1894 at the University of Berne Switzerland. Professor Vogt supplied a mathematical demonstration, using the statistical data available at that time, to show that a person who had once undergone smallpox, instead of being immune from a second attack, actually had an increased susceptibility to a second attack. He also showed that in Germany, in the Army, in which all recruits are re-vaccinated, the mortality from smallpox was 60%, more than among the civil population of the same age: it was ten times greater among the infantry than among the cavlry, and sixty times more among the Hessians than among the Wurtembergers. The Bavarian contingent, which was re-vaccinated without exception,, had five times the death-rate from smallpox in the epidemic of 1870 – 1871 than the Bavarian civilian population of the same ages had, though revaccination was not obligatory amongst the civilians.
His figures accorded with those from Prussia which was the best re-vaccinated country in Europe. In the 1871 epidemic, Prussia had 69,839 deaths, higher than any other Northern state.
Furthermore, many other physicians provided evidence to the royal commission that they frequently observed people experiencing second attacks of Smallpox.
This was backed up by Jenner’s 1808 publication called “Facts for the most part unobserved, or not duly noticed respecting Variolous Contagion (pg 17) in which he cites a passage from his 1799 publication called “Further Observations”:
“It should be remembered that the constitution cannot, by previous infection, be rendered totally insusceptible of the variolous poison. Neither the casual nor the inoculated Smallpox, whether it produced the disease in a mild or violent way, can perfectly extinguish the susceptibility”
But this information along with the very public statement by the Registrar General that the death rate was increasing, was considered by many parents indisputable evidence that vaccination, far from protecting their children, would not only make them sick of syphilis, and other diseases, but make them more susceptible to smallpox.
Little wonder that the unions had such whole hearted parental support and co-operation with their unorthodox plans.
The problem for the medical people was that such information had the potential to unravel not only their reputation, but the vaccine “industry”. So to counter the negative publicity, in both lay and medical media, the medical profession using the results of the Royal commission, started a mass publicity campaign, blaming the previous use of arm to arm vaccination, and badly trained doctors and vaccine administrators – and even “wrong technique” as the cause of all the troubles.
They maintained that a new “safe, pure glycerinated lymph” was the only one that would work. They proposed that vaccine manufacture should be removed from the hands of amateurs with “dubious” stock, and that its manufacture should be entrusted to “reliable” pharmaceutical companies to ensure a standard safe product.
Arm to arm vaccination was immediately made illegal in 1898, after the medical profession admitted that arm to arm did indeed spread both syphilis and tuberculosis, and this provided them with the scapegoat and useful alibi to “get out of jail” so to speak..
Even so, huge numbers of parents simply didn’t buy into what they saw as the new propaganda.
And it is interesting to note that the fatality rate of subsequent epidemics was very very much lower. Prior to 1886, the fatality rate had been consistently at, or above 15 – 17%. The 1891 – 2(12.70), 1897(18.44), and 1901-218.55 and 16.60) outbreaks showed the levels of pre-1986
But again, the problem with these statistics, is that the dead were mostly considered unvaccinated, simply because a scar could not be found. Yet most patients had asserted they were vaccinated. Who knows – but even allowing for that, the general mortality percentage from 1887 onwards showed sporadic high points, but in between that, very very low ones as well. According to the literature, other factors were also considered to be at work, since while the average case fatality rate was not high in 1891, it was noted that there was an exceeding high prevalence of the disease amongst the vagrant classes in London, and it was noted to have badly hit the “undernourished group with diminished resistance” the virulence of the smallpox was getting less, and this also increased the number of parents not wishing to vaccinate…
From 1919, variola minor alastrim was totally dominant in the UK and severe forms of smallpox never again entered Great Britain. It is also to be noted that vaccination rates dropped severely by 1883, with the majority of parents defying the law in places like Leicestershir. The number of parents summonsed and prepared to be imprisoned show this clearly. By 1885, the system was pretty clogged, with over 3,000 parents awaiting prosecution, which mobilised demonstrations in the towns where numbers were mounting.. But by1898 the fine/jail system was quietly abandoned after the 1898 Act allowed conscientious objection if supported by a magistrate. By the end of 1898, 203,413 “C.O.” certificates had been issued by local magistrates, excusing over 230,000 children from vaccination. The government attempted to clamp down on the definition on what constituted “satisfaction” of conscientious belief, which resulted in a drop of only 39, 511 certificates in the following year. Which sprung the National Anti-Vaccination League back into life. This was compounded by the fact that the new Government calf lymph had not yet been given with any “guarantee”. The NAVL league ran a concerted campaign until in 1907, an act was passed virtually ending compulsory vaccination. By making a straightforward declaration, a parent was free of obligation to the act. By 1911, over 25% of births were exempted, and it was all down-hill for the pro-vaccinationists from there. In the late 40’s, the Vaccination Act was repealed totally..
In the medical literature, you come across substantial quantities of material detailing that the virus had lost its virulence in all the more developed countries, not just in England, and no longer seemed to cause death, but the medical profession would not discontinue immunization in case the virus reverted back to virulence(!!!!!) From 1895, with the exception of Africa where the passing around of smallpox scabs was still practiced (there, they were mainly swallowed..!!!…), right up to the 60’s, the major smallpox epidemics through the world ALL took place in ‘fully’ vaccinated countries. Which isn’t surprising given the number of different sources for the vaccine, and the fact that, STILL, no-one really had the foggiest as to what it was. For all they knew, they could have been propagating a very severe strain of the virus in some vaccine batches….
The United Nations (in the days the League of Nations” kept the data.
Egypt. Compulsory vaccination since 1890. 1929, the League of Nationaion reported that the vaccination campaign of 1920, of 5.5000,000 vaccination had wiped out all smallpox. In 1925, 14,900,000 vaccinations were given in a population of 13,964,000. In 1926 2,677 were stricken, 544 died. By the end of 1934, 7,650 cases had been reported; 1,373 had died, and all were vaccinated.
Japan. In 1906, Baron Takaki stated at a medical function in England: “There are no antivaccinationists in Japan. Every child is vaccinated before 6 months, on entering school, the army and again in an outbreak.”
In 1908, Japan had 18,075 cases, 5,838 deaths, a mortality of 33% which was the highest ever, even prior to vaccinations. But that was not the first for Japan. Between 1886 – 92, there were 25,474,370 vaccinations and revaccinations given. During those seven years there were 165,774 reported cases and 28,979 deaths.
Italy – 1920 – 99% vaccinated, 12, 155 deaths.
Phillipines : 1911-20; 24,436,889 vaccination given by the US. The result = 75,339 deaths which was the highest death rate in history. Before vaccination, the phillipines highest death rate had been 10%. In 1918 – 20 alone, there were 122,997 cases, and 65,241 deaths. Dr Hay also gave considerable evidence that after USA vaccination in 1899 – 1902, smallpox increased 1,000%. However, this is unverifiable, because for some reason, the Army Annual Reports for these years, which were held in the Army Medical Library in Washington were missing at the time of enquiry.
Great Britain.
1944 (Lancet, no 2, pg 681) Dr Illingworth and Dr Olive document only the first 100 cases of smallpox in a military hospital in 1943, and 44. 96 had been successfully vaccinated, 70 within the previous 2 years, 16 between 2 – 8 weeks before the outbreak. 13 of the 14 deaths were vaccinated.
The vaccine was only withdrawn when they could no longer deny that it was at least 257 major diseases, and that more people had died of vaccination and had suffered unnecessarily, than those who had died of, or suffered from the results of smallpox disease itself.
After it was agreed to withdraw the vaccine from routine use in bring, the BMJ, November 4th, 1950 had this to say about the pure, safe, smallpox vaccine:
“With all the best of care, heavy bacterial contamination of vaccine lymp is inevitable during its preparation, and as many as 500 million organisms per ml may be present, particularly in the tropics. They belong mostly to the cocci group, but may also include Bacillus subtilis, Bac. Coli, Pseudomas Pyocyanea, yeasts and fungi, anaerobic organisms be also be occasional contaminants. None of these methods advocated can be considered satisfactory.”
Given that many of the viruses we know now, were neither recognised or identifiable at that time, it would appear that this would have been a minimal list of contaminants.
As to what the smallpox vaccine virus was, even in 1951, BMJ said it was taken from a case in Cologne in the 1800’s. Not so, said Lister Institute in June 1962: “It is neither smallpox, nor cowpox matter, but a strain called ‘pox-virus officinale’. In 1964 in Vaccine hybrids, in Journal of Hygiene, 62, pg 147, Dr Bedson and Dumbell made the point that no-one knows what the vaccine virus is.
Which is, as far as is known, the situation today.
To understand the history, is to understand the inherent dangers in using a vaccine of unknown origin, which would never meet FDA or CDC standards today, and is one of the most heavily contaminated vaccines ever made in the history of vaccinology.
Bibliography:
Apart from medical articles, the basis of this draft is:
Encyclopedia Britannica, 1889 edition (9th)
Vaccination by Dr Charles Creighton
Smallpox in London: Factors in the decline of the Disease in the nineteenth Century, by Anne Hardy,
Medical History 1983,27:111-138
Leicester and Smallpox: The Leicester method by Stuart M.F. Fraser Medical History, 1980,24:315-332.
The Genesis of Edward Jenner’s INQUIRY of 1798: A comparison of the two unpublished manuscripts and the published version. By Derrick Baxby.
Medical Hisory, 1985,29:193-199
Law, Medicine and public opinion: the resistance to compulsory Health Legislation 1870 – 1907, part 1, and part 2 by R.M.MacLeod
Public Law (Jnl) 1967
The Value of Vaccination by Feorge William Winterburn, PhD., M.D., Pub F.E.Boericke,
1886.
An Inquiry into Vaccine “Lymph”. Medical Pamphlet Vol 119, S610.4/M248.
Other sources used are quoted in the text.
) that she is writing one, but apparently she hasn't finished yet. When she does I will definitely be buying it!
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