Now, in these facts I think it is distinctly proved that compulsory vaccination is neither necessary nor surely effective as a protective remedy, but is of doubtful value as a preventive, and is not necessary where efficient sanitation and hygiene are used, as is now the practice in modern armies; and, hence, vaccination should not be forced on any soldier or sailor under penalty of drastic punishments for refusal, but should be left to the free and voluntary assent of each man, as it now is in the English Army. Furthermore, it is believed that, instead of forcing wholesale compulsory disease upon the Army, with the vain idea of increasing health, equal effort and expense devoted to true sanitation and hygiene would surely produce better results, as emphatically proved by recent critical experience in our own Army, as just cited. See also page 210.
MEDICAL AND OTHER AUTHORITIES ADMIT DANGERS OF VACCINATION AND CONDEMN COMPULSION
Surely the example of the English Army, as above given, is a good enough precedent and authority to justify abolishing all compulsion and penalties and making all vaccination voluntary in our American Army and Navy, but if any other authorities are required for this reform, I might cite for a second example the advice from one of the highest medical authorities of to-day, viz., Osler’s “Modern Medicine,” new edition, 1913, Volume I, page 848, which admits the dangers of vaccination and condemns compulsion in these words:
“With the greatest care, however, certain risks are present and so it is unwise for the physician to force the operation upon those who are unwilling, or to give assurances of absolute harmlessness.”
I will now ask your attention to a third authority against compulsion, which is of the highest significance and force, viz., the great English Commission on Vaccination appointed by Queen Victoria in 1889, which sat for about seven years, made a most exhaustive examination of the subject, and rendered its voluminous reports in 1896. This Commission was composed of five of the leading doctors and eight of the leading laymen of England, and their majority and minority reports differed on the merits of vaccination, but both admitted its dangers and both agreed in advising the repeal or modification of the English compulsory law, which, however, did not apply to adults, but only to infants under one year, which form the most susceptible part of the population. After this recommendation a law was passed, now in force, called the “conscientious clause,” whereby parents can exempt their children from vaccination by filing a statement of conscientious objection; and under this law vaccination has so greatly declined in England that to-day it is estimated that over sixty per cent. of the children born are unvaccinated, and yet, contrary to the contentions of the vaccinators, smallpox has not increased, but has greatly declined, corresponding to the decline in vaccination and to the increase in general sanitation and hygiene, as England is now one of the most sanitary countries in the world. This beneficial effect on public health resulting from repealing compulsion and making vaccination voluntary has been so positive that the English Minister of Health, Hon. John Burns, made this significant public declaration in the House of Commons on April 12, 1911, viz.: “Just in proportion as, in recent years, exemptions [from vaccination] have gone up from four per cent. to thirty per cent., so deaths from smallpox have declined.”
I will now add a fourth and last example in which I think you will find a full justification for suppressing all compulsory vaccination as both evil and unnecessary, and this is the advice of one of the latest English books on “The Vaccination Question” by Dr. Millard, London, 1914. Dr. Millard, although a strong pro-vaccinist, has been for the past ten years the health officer of the unvaccinated city of Leicester, which has a population of about 300,000, and for the last thirty years has relied on sanitation and hygiene without vaccination to protect and improve the public health, and this is the gist of what Dr. Millard says of the success of this method:
“The two crucial and outstanding facts which I wish to lay stress upon, are:
“(a) The unexpected and remarkable experience of the town of Leicester, which for thirty years has abandoned infantile vaccination, yet has shown an enormous decline in smallpox mortality.
“(b) The fact that, although infantile vaccination is falling more and more into disuse throughout the whole country, yet smallpox, contrary to all pro-vaccinist expectation and prophecy, continues to decline and has almost disappeared.
... “The striking facts that in Leicester, without infantile vaccination, the decline has been greater than in most places, and that throughout the country smallpox has continued to decrease in spite of the falling off in vaccination, should surely be sufficient grounds for legitimate doubt.