The rank stupidity and falsity of the statement first quoted will be evident when we recite the fact that the very basic purpose and function of the bovine virus is to transmit the disease cow-smallpox from calves to man, as an alleged preventive of another disease, natural smallpox, and yet this high medical authority, writing for the information of the trusting public in one of our leading books of reference, solemnly tells us that it is absolutely impossible to transmit any disease by it, and that this doctrine has been preached to students for years as an established fact! If, however, he meant to say that it is absolutely impossible to transmit any other disease besides cow-smallpox or “vaccinia,” this statement would, of course, be equally false. Even of such generally harmless and benign mediums as air, water and milk, it could not be sanely or truthfully said by any one that “there is absolutely no danger of transmitting disease” by them, for we all know that some of the most common and fatal diseases are often transmitted by these very benign mediums, air, water and milk. But to make such a reckless statement about a dangerous complicated disease culture or virus, a revolting extract of pustules, is not only grossly untruthful, but it is hardly even sane; yet this is a good sample of some of the statements with which our high medical authorities have misled the trusting public mind. And speaking of “sanity,” it may provide us with a rather laughable emotion, at this point in our very grave subject, if I now cite the fact that at the time this high medical authority made this most false and absurd statement, as to the utter harmlessness of vaccination, he actually held the most high and significant office of—“President of the New York State Commission on Lunacy”!
THE ERRORS IN THE BRITANNICA
The article on Vaccination in the Encyclopedia Britannica, in the old edition preceding the last or current edition, was written by Dr. Chas. Creighton of London, a well known English doctor who, by long study, has become an opponent of vaccination, and is the author of several books exposing its fallacies. When Dr. Creighton first got the commission to write the article for the Encyclopedia he was a pro-vaccinist, like many other doctors, but to fit himself to write a full and impartial article which would give both sides of the subject he resolved to make a thorough study of it, pro and con. This study convinced him of the dangerous nature of vaccination to health and life, its limited or exaggerated value as a protection against smallpox, and its illogical or unscientific basis as a medical remedy; and his critical article on this subject, when it first appeared in the leading Encyclopedia, made a sensation in the medical world and has been a thorn in the side of pro-vaccinists ever since.
Now, what will impartial students of this subject say when I cite the fact that the article on Vaccination in the last or current edition of the Britannica is written, not by a man who is impartial and professionally disinterested in the subject, as was Dr. Creighton, and who tried to give both sides of the subject freely, but, on the contrary, by a man who is actually a manufacturer or inventor of vaccine virus and has, therefore, necessarily, a professional interest and bias to conceal the failures and dangers of vaccination as far as he can? Surely, the editors of the Britannica made a great moral and logical mistake when they selected any man to write so important an article on a much disputed subject in this great book of reference who had any professional or other interest or bias in this subject. Now, the biased and interested author of this article in the last edition is none other than Dr. S. Monckton Copeman of London, a strong pro-vaccinist, who claims to be the original inventor of the so-called “glycerinated virus” now in general use for vaccination. The idea of adding glycerine to the virus is to kill the many dangerous disease germs or infections it is known to contain, but to preserve the germ of smallpox, or “cowpox” intact. This is, of course, an admission that before the use of glycerinated virus vaccination was very dangerous and likely to cause many infections in the human body, but since the adoption of glycerinated virus—Dr. Copeman’s invention—it is now claimed that vaccination is rendered safe and harmless. This is, of course, a false claim, as I have already shown, and will further show in a succeeding paragraph.
Now, this greatly biased and one-sided article of Dr. Copeman—the maker or inventor of glycerinated virus—in our greatest Encyclopedia, is surely a good illustration of my charge that the trusting public mind is constantly misled, whether intentionally or unintentionally I know not, by some of our highest medical authorities on the whole subject of vaccination, and particularly as to its alleged harmlessness. Thus, when Dr. Copeman, who is regarded as one of the leading authorities on modern vaccination, comes to consider the dangers of vaccination, he heads his paragraph, “Alleged Injurious Effects,” thus implying that the injuries are only “alleged” and not real, and he goes on to argue or imply that—due to his invention—the dangers and injuries are now trifling or negligible, but tacitly admits or implies that before his invention of glycerinated virus the dangers were very serious, whereas, with his invention, vaccination is now practically safe and harmless.
Now, what must we think of the truth of this claim that vaccination with glycerinated virus is now safe and harmless, when, at the very time that its inventor made or implied this claim in the pages of the Encyclopedia, in the year 1910 or 1911, the vital records of his own country, in the reports of the Registrar General of England for those two years, showed that there were eight deaths from vaccination in the year 1910, and fourteen deaths from vaccination in 1911! And these fatal vaccinations were, of course, all made with the glycerinated virus as, practically, no other kind is now used! These vaccination deaths were all in little children under five years and they exceeded the deaths from smallpox in the same age class by fourfold in 1910 and by threefold in 1911! That is, the deaths from vaccination under five years were eight in 1910 and fourteen in 1911; while the deaths from smallpox under five years were two in 1910 and five in 1911! The total deaths from smallpox in all ages were nineteen in 1910 and twenty-three in 1911.
The four years preceding 1910 show even a worse record for vaccinal mortality than the record of 1910 and 1911, so that the record of those two years cannot be claimed as anything special or unusual. For example, the reports of the Registrar General for 1906, 1907 and 1908 show a total of only six deaths for these three years from smallpox in the infant ages under five years—the ages most susceptible to smallpox—while for the same infant ages there is a total of fifty-three deaths for the same three years from cowpox or vaccination—nine times more infant deaths from vaccination than from smallpox! In 1909 there is reported only one infant death from smallpox and eleven infant deaths from vaccination!
This shocking record of vaccination deaths clearly shows that the famous glycerinated vaccination of Dr. Copeman, which he virtually claims to be so safe and harmless, in our greatest book of public reference, is actually from three to ten times more fatal to children than natural smallpox, as proved by the vital records of his own country and by the highest statistical authority in the world! Surely, Mr. President, in such crushing counter facts as these, my charge of a shocking deception of the public mind, either intentional or unintentional, on the merits of vaccination by our highest medical and literary authorities, is flatly proved.
THE ERRORS OF DR. M. J. ROSENAU, A HIGH MEDICAL AUTHORITY, ON THE RELATIVE HARMLESSNESS OF VACCINATION
We now come to a different style of medical falsehood on the effects of vaccination which, while honestly admitting its dangerous nature, yet tries to minimize the dangers as much as possible and reduce them to the relatively immaterial. This is a shameful equivocation of the truth and an absurd contradiction of facts, as I will now prove out of the mouth of the apologist himself. I now refer to the statements of Dr. Milton J. Rosenau, who is one of our highest authorities in this country on vaccination and other special medical subjects. He was for several years Director of the United States Hygienic Laboratory at Washington, where he made many investigations into the nature of vaccine virus, its impurities, dangers, etc., and has made official reports on different subjects for the said Laboratory and for the United States Public Health Service. He is now professor of Preventive Medicine and Hygiene in Harvard University, and is the author of several books, one of which, “Preventive Medicine and Hygiene,” published by D. Appleton & Co. in 1914, I will now quote from. In this book, on page 19, under the head of “Dangers and Complications” of vaccination, Dr. Rosenau states as follows: