This logical expectation is what seems to have actually happened in the case of much-vaccinated Japan, and instead of being made immune from smallpox epidemics by general vaccination and re-vaccination—which is one of the positive claims made by vaccinators—Japan, on the contrary, seems to have suffered from the worst epidemics of smallpox known in modern times, not only worse than in poorly vaccinated countries like England and the United States, but worse than experienced in old times before the days of vaccination!
This conclusion seems to be fully proved from the U. S. Public Health Reports for September 2, 1910, which give this frightful record of smallpox epidemics in Japan for several years past. The population of Japan at that time, 1910, was about 48 millions, and the high waves in the epidemics in the preceding ten years were as follows: In 1898 there were 149,012 smallpox cases with 40,971 deaths, mortality 27½ per cent.; in 1905 there were 10,704 cases with 3,388 deaths, mortality 31½ per cent., and in 1908 there were 18,075 cases with 5,835 deaths, mortality 32½ per cent.
These figures, considering the vaccinal conditions existing in Japan, under most rigid compulsory laws, are surely terribly significant, to say the least, and fully shatter the fallacious vaccine doctrine that vaccination is the only effective remedy against smallpox and that it always lowers the mortality in epidemics! Per contra, here we see from these official U. S. Health Reports that in this much-vaccinated population there was not only a series of severe epidemics with a very high mortality, but a constantly ascending mortality from 27½ per cent. in 1898 to 31½ per cent. in 1905 and 32½ per cent. in 1908! Whereas the usual mortality given by good authorities in old times before the days of vaccination was only 15 to 20 per cent.! See “History of Smallpox” by Dr. James Moore, Jenner’s chief assistant, London, 1815, page 243.
Now I believe that there is no country in modern times, whether vaccinated or unvaccinated, which has shown worse epidemics of smallpox than much-vaccinated Japan, as above shown from official data, whereas the epidemics within the same period in the poorly vaccinated countries of England and the United States have been small in comparison. Surely, therefore, our “Yankees of the Orient” seem to have copied some of our antique medical barbarisms even more fully than they have copied our real modern improvements. And, surely, poorly vaccinated England is much better off with less vaccination and more sanitation when its Minister of Health, Hon. John Burns, can publicly declare in Parliament on April 12, 1911, that, “Just in proportion as, in recent years, exemptions from vaccination have gone up from 4 per cent. to 30 per cent., so deaths from smallpox have declined.” This also is the experience of Leicester, the sanitary English city, unvaccinated for the past 30 years, as previously shown at page 22; and such, I believe, will be the result wherever that irrational system of inflicting disease to produce health is abandoned and the rational system of sanitation and hygiene is adopted in its place.
JAPANESE VIRUS CAUSES EPIDEMICS OF CATTLE PLAGUE IN MANKIND AND ANIMALS
Not only, therefore, has general compulsory vaccination failed to protect Japan from some of the worst smallpox epidemics known in modern or olden times, as just shown, but, what is perhaps still more damning, it is proved by U. S. Government Reports, quoted on pages 95 and 99, that Japanese vaccination was the source of the deadly epidemics of Cattle Plague, known as “Foot and Mouth Disease,” which afflicted both animals and mankind in the United States in 1902 and 1908, this dangerous infection being imported in vaccine virus from Japan and used by two of the largest makers of virus in the United States. See Year Book, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, 1914, page 21. See also page 99 in Supplement. These epidemics raged in several of our States, as previously shown, and caused the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of animals, an unknown amount of human mortality, and a loss of millions of dollars to the Government and people of this country. Surely such awful results from Japanese vaccination are a shocking mockery and a stinging rebuke to all vaccination as an alleged “health” remedy and call loudly for the abolishment of all compulsory vaccination as a most dangerous public evil and a flagrant violation of vital human rights to Medical Freedom, Sanity and Safety.
MEDICAL FREEDOM NECESSARY FOR MEDICAL PROGRESS, MEDICAL TRUTH AND HUMAN SAFETY
As we now enjoy the great Democratic Institution of a Free Church in a Free State, with all church control of government and all compulsory or forced religion prohibited, so, in the near future, we must bring about an equally important reform for human welfare in preventing all medical control of our departments of government, in securing true medical freedom and prohibiting all compulsory medicine as effectually as all compulsory religion and church control of government is now prohibited. And as full freedom for all religious sects, in religious matters, has surely brought about an undoubted advance in religious progress and in true religion and morality throughout the world, so it is sure that full medical freedom will bring about a similar increase in true medical progress and efficiency throughout the world.
Now in this most important reform of Medical Freedom I want to say at this point that I hold no brief for any school of medicine or religion, but what I contend for, as an American citizen, is something broader, more inclusive, more American, and more important for public right, health and safety than any one religious or medical doctrine, and that is a full Medical Freedom for all the people to adopt any honest or sincere doctrine or system of medicine which they may prefer, and a free public field for the exercise of this doctrine or system without any harassment or oppression from any other system of medicine which may falsely and foolishly think itself specially ordained to control the whole field of medicine. And just as we now enjoy a full constitutional guarantee for Religious Freedom, which prevents any one sect from infringing on the conscientious liberty of another, so we must have a full Medical Freedom with an equal guarantee which will give all honest or reasonable medical doctrines free scope and prevent any medical doctrine or practice whatever from being forced on any person against free will and consent, and which will recognize the full right of the individual to adopt any preferred system of medical treatment, whether with or without prayer and faith, with or without drugs and medicines, or with or without vaccines or serums.
This broad medical freedom for all systems of medicine is absolutely necessary for true medical progress itself, for only by testing these different medical theories and practices side by side freely in every-day experience and on a wide scale can the real truth and virtue of any particular doctrine or practice be determined. A great modern doctor uttered a most important truth on this head when he said that “He is the best doctor who knows the uselessness and dangers of the greatest number of remedies.” And the best way of finding out the uselessness, danger or virtue of any remedies is to try them carefully and freely side by side. And this free use and disuse of alleged remedies side by side in contrast or competition will ultimately sift out and condemn whatever is really evil or useless more effectually and justly than any drastic compulsion or dogmatic suppression could possibly do, thus making the best and surest contribution to true medical progress, safety and efficiency.