VACCINATION.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE ''SPECTATOR."] SIR,—It is so seldom that the Spectator calls names instead of giving arguments, that the following words, being part of a sen- tence on vaccination, in your last issue, " dislike to vaccination always latent among the vulgar," struck me with considerable force. I enclose you a copy of a letter written by Professor Newman expressing his dislike to vaccination, and intention to join the Anti-Compulsory Vaccination League. I do not suppose you will class him among the vulgar. I have been vulgar enough to be fined 20s. and 2s. costs in the Lambeth police-court, rather than suffer my child to run the risks of vaccination, and on the part of the " vulgar" generally-, I beg to ask for arguments and facts that the decrease of small-pox is due to vaccination, and that vaccination does not increase the number of deaths from diseases of the chest and lungs, nor spread the nastiest disease on the face of the earth among innocent and healthy children, instead of the empty declamation usually supplied in their atead.—I am, Sir, &c.,
J. B.
"DEAR MR. PITMAN, —I have never in my heart or judgment approved of Compulsory Vaccination, but have thought that it belongs to medical men to judge in chief. But now that I understand (especially from an article in the new number of the Westminster Review) that a horrible virus is extending itself in the blood of the English people—from causes evi- dently rather guessed at than known—it is clearly possible that much of the evil is from vaccination. But the principle of vaccination itself, as a permanent regulation, is enrely untenable. I saw a complaint of Florence Nightingale's lately, that people take for granted that children must have measles and other diseases. Those who think so do not try to avoid and remove the causes, but to make the complaint more tolerable. This seems to me to put the finger on the weak spot of the doctors—alike of the body politic and of the individual body. Instead of saying, ' There ought to ba no poverty, no disease ; our public regulations must never be allowed to cause it ;' their sole question is—How to palliate it? Doctors in private practice are seldom to blame for this, for the patient gener- ally comes to them far too late for prevention ; but a doctor who aspires to legislate is eminently bound to avoid soothing the consciences of the well-to-do by assuming that evils are irremediable. In pressing on the Legislature compulsory vaccination, instead of pressing to remove all causes of smallpox, they assume that smallpox does not spring out of removable causes. But to enact and enforce vaccination with something or other, when the legislators cannot enforce that the virus shall be pure of its kind, is so indefensible, that it might seem a mere representation would lead to repeal, or lead Ministers to suspend the Act during inquiry. I must add my name to your Anti-Compulsory Vaccination League. I will send some subscription when opportunity offers.—Truly yours, F. W. NEWMAN.
"1 Dover Place, Clifton, Bristol, July 7, 1869."
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