At this point the evidence of the anti-vaccinists was cut short. They had much more to produce, but enough had been heard. The Committee had forgotten its purpose, which was not to discuss vaccination, but, accepting the rite as unquestionable, to consider whether the law which enforced it was capable of amendment. Still, the mischief being done, it was thought advisable to counteract it; and forthwith contrary testimony was laid on. Various officials who for years had made the promotion of vaccination their business were summoned to the rescue, along with certain fashionable physicians, whose assurance, it was calculated, would overcome any distrust that might be excited in the public mind.
The first of the officials was Mr. John Simon, a review of whose Papers on Vaccination forms [Chapter XL.] of the present volume. Evidence from Mr. Simon relative to vaccination was of much the same order as that of a Virginian of former days on slavery, or a thriving London publican on the liquor traffic. Mr. Simon answered to the demand upon him: he was thorough: there was nothing like leather—nothing! Smallpox was among the most contagious and most fatal of pestilences, and “for an overwhelming majority of persons, well vaccinated in infancy, vaccination was a security for life against even an attack of smallpox.” The unvaccinated died at the rate of 35½ per cent.; the vaccinated in general at 7 per cent.; and “the properly vaccinated” at from 1 to ½ per cent.—the fact being concealed that in times when all were unvaccinated, the smallpox death-rate ranged from 10 to 18 per cent., the same overhead death-rate of vaccinated and unvaccinated at this day. There had never been, he believed, a case of death from the direct effect of “properly performed vaccination”—the qualification, it will be observed, referring all cases of death to something other than the correct rite. He admitted there was not the least doubt that syphilis had been invaccinated on the Continent, but either from carelessness or culpable intention. Sanitation, he said, had little or no influence on smallpox: vaccination was the only protective—which variety of vaccination being judiciously left undefined. Smallpox did not displace other fevers during its prevalence, as alleged by Dr. Pearce. Holding that 97 per cent. of Londoners were vaccinated, he did not see that the epidemic then raging, the severest of the century, disproved the security asserted for vaccination.
As we read Simon’s evidence, we realise afresh the possibilities of audacity operating on credulity: there is nothing that men, otherwise sane, may not believe when their disposition is set toward belief. This Committee sat in London amid a population, almost universally vaccinated, suffering from smallpox as they never had suffered within living memory; and yet in presence of such a demonstration of the impotence of the vaccine ordinance, they listened to the soothsayer with abject acquiescence! Strange as are the records of witchcraft, there is nothing in them more marvellous than this 1871 Committee of select men from the House of Commons taking for true what under their own eyes was visible as untrue—deceived and consenting to be deceived.
As for those who disputed the efficacy of vaccination, and justified their disbelief by smallpox among the vaccinated, Simon’s contempt was unqualified—contempt being essential to the success of the part enacted. “Some of them were ignorant,” he said, “and others dishonest.” They were a “league of persons interested in interrupting the fulfilment of the law, and very actively engaged in disseminating falsehoods against vaccination”—falsehoods in its favour actively disseminated by Simon and his trade-union being disinterested and praiseworthy.
Dr. R. Hall Bakewell, vaccinator-general for Trinidad, was somehow produced by mistake, his evidence being in several respects the reverse of what was wanted. He thought vaccination good, but that “it should be done in a more careful manner.” It ought not to be compulsory, but left to the good sense of the people. Having been proved to cause death, “it was unjust to oblige a parent to submit his child to an operation attended with such risk, however rare.” Referring to his experience in Trinidad, he said—
3557.—I have seen Vaccination produce inflammation of the arm and general fever lasting for several days. Such illness was often alleged as an excuse by mothers for not bringing their children for inspection on the 8th day. At first I was inclined to regard the assertion as a mere excuse, but on visiting the homes I found the children were really ill, and that it was not safe to bring them for inspection.
3563.—There is a strong opinion prevalent in Trinidad, and in the West Indies generally, that Leprosy has been introduced to the system by Vaccination. I found that medical men when they had occasion to vaccinate their own children, or those of patients in whom they were specially interested, applied to me for English lymph in order to avoid the invaccination of Leprosy, notwithstanding there was an equal, and probably a greater, chance of the English lymph being contaminated with Syphilis. I had several cases of Leprosy in which Vaccination seemed the only means of accounting for the disease.
As a consequence of this prevalent opinion, vaccination was much disliked in Trinidad, and, although by law compulsory, was indifferently enforced, so that at least half the population escaped unvaccinated.
Interrogated concerning smallpox in Trinidad, Dr. Bakewell said there had been no epidemic for fourteen or fifteen years when one occurred “frightfully severe, as are all epidemics in Trinidad, owing to the entire neglect of sanitary precautions”; adding that “the mortality from smallpox may be greatly diminished by sanitary measures independently of vaccination.” The Doctor still further ruffled the prejudices of the Committee in asserting—
3783.—I do not believe that the general mortality of the country is at all diminished by the absence of Smallpox. In Trinidad, for instance, our mortality is none the less because we have neither Smallpox, nor Whooping Cough, nor Scarlet Fever, nor Measles—the four most prolific causes of death among young children. Nevertheless infant mortality in Port of Spain is double that of London. By merely cutting off one disease from the category of diseases, you do not lessen the mortality of a country—