is the abiding social law, however veiled or elevated in application.
Again we have to recollect, that in 1853 there was no developed or scientific resistance to vaccination. As to the nature and value of the practice there was wide diversity of opinion, notwithstanding Lord Lyttelton’s affirmation of the complete unanimity of the medical profession; but although such scepticism was general, the rite constituted an established poll-tax among the respectable classes, which sort of thing is never readily surrendered. Hence it seemed less unreasonable to enforce the like observance on “the ignorant and prejudiced” at the cost of the poor-rate. When Canning refused to consent to compulsion in 1808, cowpox had a competitor in smallpox inoculation; and Peel in his later protest expressed the preference of an expiring generation for living English liberty over cut-and-dry subservience. Despotic philanthropy was coming into vogue, and it was no longer thought impracticable or inexpedient to do good to people in spite of themselves. There was therefore little to be said against the Act of 1853 beyond what Sir George Strickland expressed. The right of the prejudiced and ignorant to the enjoyment of their prejudice and ignorance had become obsolete and indefensible.
The report of the Epidemiological Society was taken as the warrant for the Act of 1853 alike by the Lords and Commons. Turning to that report,[282] it is difficult in a few words to convey an adequate idea of its untruthful character. Whoever, it is said, wills the end wills the means; and certain medical men having resolved to make vaccination compulsory whatever was requisite had to be accomplished; and Dr. Seaton undertook the operation, the Epidemiological Society, of which he was “the ruling spirit”,[283] playing the part of guarantee. For the persuasion of the Lords and Commons, an advocacy of vaccination without hesitation or qualification was deemed advisable, and the line was thus followed up—
Smallpox is a disease to which every person is liable who is not protected by a previous attack or by Vaccination. In its unmodified form it is fatal to about one in four or one in five of all whom it invades; and, when it does not destroy life, it in many cases disfigures and deteriorates the general health. Every case of it is a centre of contagion, and every unvaccinated or imperfectly vaccinated population is a nidus for the disease to settle in and propagate itself. It is on the two latter propositions, which do not admit of being controverted, that we conceive any enactment for rendering Vaccination compulsory must be based. If it admit of doubt how far it is justifiable in this free country to compel a person to take care of his own life and that of his offspring, it can scarcely be disputed that no one has a right to put in jeopardy the lives of his fellow-subjects.
All will recognise the authoritative air of the foregoing, so impressive where nothing better is known; but the indisputable proposition, “that no one has a right to put in jeopardy the lives of his fellow-subjects,” was curiously inconsistent with faith in the asserted prophylactic; for if the vaccinated were secure from smallpox, how could the unvaccinated place their lives in jeopardy? The style assumed was thus maintained—
We are ourselves satisfied, and it is the concurrent and unanimous testimony of nearly 2,000 medical men with whom we have been in correspondence, that Vaccination is a perfectly safe and efficient prophylactic against this disease.
This proposition we hold to be proved—
1. By the general immunity with which it is found that those who have been vaccinated can mingle with Smallpox patients, a fact so familiar that we do not feel that we need adduce any illustration of it.
2. By the gradual decrease which has taken place in the mortality from Smallpox, as compared with the mortality from all causes, since Vaccination has been introduced and been generally received.