Here again we see no attempt made to disprove Watt’s statement, whilst its mischievousness was assumed because it was “discouraging,” and lent “countenance to some of the worst prejudices of those who were opposed to vaccination!” Truth is the best of all things—except when it spoils business. Then it becomes “evil,” and “shocking,” and “gives countenance to the worst prejudices.”
FOOTNOTES:
[269] An Inquiry into the Relative Mortality of the Principal Diseases of Children, and the numbers who have died under Ten Years of Age in Glasgow during the last Thirty Years. By Robert Watt, M.D., Lecturer on the Theory and on the Practice of Medicine in Glasgow. Glasgow, 1813. Pp. 64.
[270] An inference disputed for reasons given.
[271] Memoirs of William Collins, R.A. By his Son. Vol. ii. p. 3.
[272] Remarks on the Frequency and Fatality of Different Diseases. 1808.
[273] Baron’s Life of Jenner, vol. ii. p. 392.
[274] Ibid., vol. ii. p. 248.