THE UNSANITARY CONDITIONS OF JENNER’S DAY EXPOSED. POWER OF SANITATION TO EXTINGUISH SMALLPOX ADMITTED BY JENNER’S CHIEF ASSISTANT IN 1815
It can therefore be readily seen that, as soon as the barbarous system of deliberately inviting and spreading disease described in the preceding paragraph was abandoned, and the reckless exposure of smallpox in public and private was prevented by strict isolation and proper sanitation, smallpox epidemics were bound to decline and disappear. But this result has happened only in very recent times in advanced communities which have adopted some effective system of sanitation and isolation, and with little effect one way or the other from vaccination except that smallpox and other diseases and the general death-rate seem to be much worse where vaccination is extensively used and sanitation, isolation and hygiene are neglected, as has been proved flagrantly in the case of much-vaccinated Japan, cited on page 53, and, reversely, in the case of the English City of Leicester, cited on page 22, where the best effects in reduction of smallpox and increase in general health have been produced by abandoning vaccination and relying on sanitation, isolation and hygiene for the last thirty-five years.
Now, a very interesting and convincing evidence in this direction is furnished by Dr. Jenner’s chief assistant, Dr. James Moore, before quoted, who, writing over one hundred years ago, clearly recognized and admitted the truth and force of the above contention, viz., that sanitation and isolation would extinguish epidemic smallpox, without regard to vaccination; and this point I will now prove from Dr. Moore’s book on “The History of Smallpox,” published in London in 1815, which seems to have been one of the first authorities to urge sanitation and isolation for the suppression of this disease.
On pages 304 to 307 in Dr. Moore’s book, he gives a very clear statement of the above point, as follows:
“The plague was a less destructive distemper than the Small Pox, yet no plan similar to the quarantine laws has been established to extinguish this infection; and one which was lately proposed in Parliament was discouraged as injurious to personal freedom.”
“But surely every man susceptible of a dangerous contagion has a natural right to hinder persons who are contaminated with that disease, from touching or even approaching him. The exercise of this right is a species of self defence; which for the public safety may assuredly be regulated by law, without infringing any reasonable notions of political liberty.”
“It is therefore much to be wished, that to preclude all persons infected with the Small Pox from mixing with the public, a law should be enacted to confine them strictly to their own houses, or in hospitals appropriated by the parishes for that purpose, as long as the infection is upon them.”
“The plan is simple, to enforce it would be easy; and the sole inconvenience would be a temporary confinement of those persons whose enlargement spreads poison through the land.”
“By such a measure, the infection of the Small Pox, for want of subjects to act upon, would necessarily decline, and soon become extinct; and multitudes of human creatures would be annually preserved from disease, blindness and death.”
It will now be seen that this interesting medical and historical authority shows us that, while quarantine or isolation had been used to some extent in old times in the prevention of the plague, yet it had never been applied to smallpox, and that a law proposed in the English Parliament in 1815 to make isolation compulsory was defeated; but Dr. Moore distinctly tells us that such a law or practice, if enforced, would by itself extinguish smallpox!
Now, this admission I regard as very significant and conclusive in this contention in coming from Dr. Moore, who was a medical authority in Jenner’s day, being a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of London and Surgeon of the Second Regiment of Life Guards, and was also so close to Jenner that he dedicated his book to him, and was not only his chief assistant in the new scheme of vaccination but held the important office of “Director of the National Vaccine Establishment,” which was the government institution controlling the production of vaccine virus and the administration of public vaccination.
Surely, therefore, we could have no better authority than Dr. Moore to admit and establish our present contention against the modern evil of compulsory vaccination, viz., that there is surely something else besides vaccination that has prevented or reduced smallpox epidemics in modern times, and that something is the benign and rational remedies of sanitation and isolation with certain natural and human changes and improvements in conditions of human life and health; and not the irrational and malign remedy of propagating and inflicting general disease upon the people, as falsely taught by the extreme vaccinators.