Mr. Gibbs inquired whether I had examined the question, and when I confessed that I had not, he asked if I would read Baron’s Life of Dr. Jenner. Nothing loath, I accepted the loan of the volumes. Doubts began to trouble me with the first volume, and the second quite upset my confidence in Vaccination as a positive preventive of Smallpox. I then set to work to ascertain with what care I could, whether there was any truth in the assertion that Vaccination diminished Smallpox or modified its virulence. The process of determination was not rapid, but long before I had formed a definite opinion, I was satisfied that Compulsory Vaccination was indefensible; and my first efforts were directed to the protection of my own children from the infliction. Unsatisfied as to what Vaccination was, or what the Vaccinator effected, I clearly saw that the State had no right to enforce a practice by no means harmless, nor preventive of Smallpox, nor easy to explain the use of.
As lecturer, debater and newspaper controversialist, Mr. Wheeler has acquired well-earned distinction. Knowing far more of vaccination, its history, varieties, consequences, and statistics than his adversaries, they are usually overthrown with a dexterity realised as horrible and astonishing. Like savages with bows and arrows, they come forth in the innocence of faith to encounter arms of precision. In 1878 Mr. Wheeler held a debate with Dr. George Wyld, an enthusiastic advocate of the cowpox discarded by Jenner as impotent against smallpox. Sir Thomas Chambers presided, and the question discussed being, “Is Vaccination worthy of National Support?” How rash and how futile was Dr. Wyld’s championship is recorded in the report of the debate.[300]
Mr. William Tebb is another well-known name in connection with the movement against vaccination. For a time dubious, his attention was quickened and his course decided by the summons of the St. Pancras guardians to have his daughter, Beatrice, vaccinated. His refusal was followed by prosecution after prosecution in the Marylebone police-court, until at last the guardians gave up the contest as hopeless.[301] It was a bad day for vaccination when the compulsory law was applied to Mr. Tebb. As with many others, persecution made of him an inflexible and active antagonist. His tongue, his pen, and his purse, coupled with untiring industry and eminent executive ability, have been devoted to the exposure and overthrow of the conjoint superstition and tyranny. Mr. Tebb is a fine exemplification of Sir T. Fowell Buxton’s opinion, “Vigour, energy, resolution, firmness of purpose—these carry the day. Is there one whom difficulties dishearten, who bends to the storm? He will do little. Is there one who will conquer? That kind of man never fails:” adding, “The longer I live, the more I am certain that the great difference between men, between the feeble and the powerful, is energy—invincible determination, a purpose once fixed, and then death or victory. That quality will do anything that can he done in this world.”[302]
Mr. P. A. Taylor’s speeches in the House of Commons have been widely read, but his Letter to Dr. W. B. Carpenter has been, perhaps, the most effective contribution to the good cause.[303] Dr. Carpenter had volunteered for the defence of vaccination, and had challenged Mr. Taylor; and being of a credulous and uncritical habit of mind, he collected and recited the various legends and factitious statistics that form the body of vaccination, with additions from his private resources; thus constituting himself an objective of attack, and providing Mr. Taylor with an excellent opportunity. Mr. Taylor accepted the challenge: he captured and destroyed Dr. Carpenter’s positions seriatim, leaving him routed and helpless. The Letter has had an immense circulation, and its influence on public opinion is manifesting itself in a thousand ways. Neither Dr. Carpenter nor any vaccinator has ventured to reply to Mr. Taylor; the fact being that no reply is possible. Any one who attentively reads Mr. Taylor’s Letter cannot fail to perceive that the practice represented by Dr. Carpenter is rooted in illusion and imposture. Silence under the circumstances may therefore pass for discretion: silence on Dr. Carpenter’s part possesses a significance it would be difficult to misinterpret. Indeed, none know better than those responsible for vaccination as a medical interest, that the less it is brought under discussion the more likely it is to endure. Quieta non movere is their motto; and officious champions like Dr. Carpenter have little thanks for their restlessness.
Correspondence in newspapers is a well-recognised means for the diffusion of new ideas, and in the use of this means the opponents of vaccination have acquired no little distinction. There is an increasing number throughout the country who not only know their own case, but the case of their adversaries better than do their adversaries themselves; and if an editor has grace enough to maintain a fair field and show no favour, the issue is invariably satisfactory. Two able correspondents, who have gone hence, are especially worthy of mention—Andrew Leighton and William Gibson Ward. Mr. Leighton was a Liverpool merchant, who, having become interested in the vaccination question, made its discussion the occupation of his leisure. With a clear and logical mind, patient, sagacious, and tolerant, prejudice itself could scarcely withstand his sweet reasonableness. Almost to the day of his death, 14th January, 1877, he was engaged in newspaper controversy, each letter bearing witness to his admirable temper and persuasive power.[304] Mr. Ward of Perriston Towers was a man of wide reading and perfervid character, who wrote and talked after the manner of Cobbett, whom in many respects he resembled. Having discovered the truth as concerned vaccination, he applied himself vigorously and successfully to its diffusion. He sustained his prosecution as a parent with the joy of one who delights in battle; and, indeed, as it was said, a periodical prosecution would have suited him exactly, providing him with occasion for a rousing speech in court and a discussion with the bench, to be duly reported in the Herefordshire newspapers. Mr. Ward died 18th October, 1882. Latterly he had access to The Times, and followed up a series of letters on subjects he had made his own with one on which he argued, that smallpox was neither an unmixed evil, nor a cause of extra mortality.[305]
To enter into a closer enumeration of those engaged in the movement against vaccination would be invidious and bound to imperfection. Still it would be grateful to refer to the various services of veterans like Sir Jervoise Clarke Jervoise, Mr. Thomas Baker, Dr. Edward Haughton, Mr. T. B. Brett of St. Leonards, Mr. Edmund Proctor of Newcastle, Mr. John Lucas of Gateshead, Mr. R. A. Milner of Keighley, Mr. W. F. Fox of Dewsbury, Dr. E. J. Crow of Ripon, Mr. Francis Davis, jun., of Enniscorthy, Mr. Wm. Thurlow of Sudbury, Mr. Wm. Adair of Maryport, Mr. Charles Gillett of Banbury, Dr. T. L. Nichols, Mr. James Burns, and Mr. Amos Booth of Leicester. These and others have borne the odium of despised truth, and live to see it steadily acquiring favour and force, whilst the delusion to which it is opposed is entering the region of scepticism preparatory to dispersion and contempt.
All means are good against evil, but deeds are more than words; and talk against vaccination counts far less than resistance to its infliction. The more who are withheld from the rite, the more live to prove its inutility; and the more the law designed to enforce is set at defiance, the surer and sooner will be its overthrow. Nevertheless, let us not forget what this warfare costs, nor how we are indebted to the men and women, brave, tender, and true, by whom it is endured. As a rule, the rich are exempt: the contest is with the poor. As Mrs. Jacob Bright says—
I object to Compulsory Vaccination because it is an outrageous piece of class legislation. No one in easy circumstances, no one possessing the luxury of a family doctor, need have his child vaccinated. He has only to tell his family doctor that he objects to Vaccination, and the matter is at an end. Did ever any one hear of a family doctor who threatened to prosecute the head of a family for nonconformity in this respect? I think not. But the family doctor of the poor is the parish doctor. He is quite independent of his patient, and being paid by other people to vaccinate them, he not only vaccinates them in many cases against their will, but he does it when he likes, and with what virus he likes, irrespective of the feelings or opinions they may entertain.
I was riding some time ago in Sherwood Forest, and stopped to ask for a glass of water at a cottage, where a poor woman was standing with her fat little baby in her arms. I said, “You’ve got a pretty boy there. Has he been vaccinated?” The mother’s face, which was glowing with pride at praise of her boy, suddenly fell, and she said, “No, madam, he hasn’t, but he’ll have to be. We’ve lost one through it,” she added, with tears in her eyes. She is one of a great number of poor people who, rightly or wrongly, believe that Vaccination is dangerous, and yet are not able to resist the pressure put upon them to vaccinate; they are too poor, and in most cases have not the spirit to resist.
I say that it is disgraceful to fine and imprison people for forming an independent opinion on a medical question; and it is particularly disgraceful that my poor neighbour should be thus persecuted when I am free, absolutely free, to please myself whether my children shall be vaccinated. It is not possible that this thing can continue.[306]