The Story of a Great Delusion in a Series of Matter-of-Fact Chapters

by William White

ABSURDITY OF REVACCINATION.

As for revaccination keeping off smallpox, it is absurd, and ought to be known for absurd. The chief incidence of smallpox is among the young, in whom it cannot be pretended that the influence of primary vaccination is exhausted. The subjects of revaccination are passing, or have passed out of the smallpox age; and as the statistics of the army and navy prove, our soldiers and sailors are no more exempt from smallpox than the unrevaccinated civil population of corresponding years. In this matter, the old words stand true, Populus vult decipi; decipiatur.