THE OFFICIAL APOLOGIA—PRO VACCINATION.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 162, 2 April 1908, Page 5

THE OFFICIAL APOLOGIA —PRO VACCINATION.

.■ Sir,— My attention'has been/drawn to tho abovo.apologia.contained m your issuo.oftho 10th'inst. I have, read it with an, infinite disgust! "-'"Banc or .blessirq?''. Uco-i h~nvdnsl' Whoever lias suffered a titho of what I havo , donp will, io" tho day'oi -liis literally . curso vaccination. \ That ',tho work of tho: ,'Ariti-yac6ination'/_ .Leaguo 1 lias told — that*, tlie .protests- ,in . law , courts of: stalwart. I 'anti-vaccinists . has-.'., caught' tho - conscienceof ' the .Ministor' for Public Health—this 'specious, manifesto is a sign infallible; Tho Department is* thrown upon : \tho defensive. Assault ."at tlie point' of tho bayonet,, as it were," would jbo madness ; th'o pomt.-bf tho pen is safer; it only needs to il)e_ incisive;, clovor- and heedless; and all this it must beforthis; special "pro-fesional-'property,"'.tliis-.'Statri vaccine-craft andj the. great ' temple of Jonncr itself is.- in. danger! And so tho Department stoops to issue what'is nothing hotter than a plausible imposing _',"puff"-ya clever, ' silver-tongued; Lcharlatanio, advertisement I What' an air of sanctity,, is' thrown around -, tho factory in Sydney Street," Wellington!—tho,' small, 1 ' -square, Spotlessly ■ white : chamber,'—the en-: auiellcd .stall,—"tho chosen calf,"7-"clcan as a ' howly-bathed . child," led out and.-laid upon .tho. tilting^.table; its abdomen shaved, scrubbed, and washed Vwith'antiseptic water, and tlioii 50 to : 100" liglit ;yet bloody (what calf, so treated has not a sensitive §kin?) incisions are mado. transversely on the abdomen, ' and then comes tho . supremo , moment of the process,—into ■ theso incisions , "tho lymph-is rubbed-in," and tho borturpd creatiiro:. is left for,, fivo . 'days • and: five nights (perhaps, more) strapped down, or ringed, helpless -as it is innocent, and then tho "pulp" around'these incisions is scraped olf, and tho poor victim, "its usefulness over" is killed. , . . .' . . -

\ Who heeds? What feelings has a calfP Is not the Department .above tho reproach (as it is above tho law) of cruelty to animals? let conscience makes cowards of .vivisectionists, ■ or why the oxcusing plea,—"ls not this calf choson as a sacrifice-to public necessity? Has it not died' a glorified death?" And yet, I:do perforce protest that to throw around this State method of torture tho halo of. ;• unconscious martyrdom,, and to hide the barbarity, of murdering so helpless arid innocent' a dependent -under the hypocrisy, or solf-delusion of; "sacrifico" and "a glorified death" is a, startling disclosure how familiarity with cruelty' sears tho moral sensibility, and'blunts tho of a kindly heart. If there were ears to hear, do not tbo very tiled, walls of that spotlessly white chamber echo the voice of Him who spoke as never man spake—"Go; ye and learn what this mbanethv I will have mercy and not sacrifice I" . ' • -.-' ■

Is' it further bvidenco of this same blunting of moral sensibility, or tho Quixotic assumption of autocratic infallibility, or of tho despotic aim and purpose to make vaccination universal, that—ignoring the whole history of vaccination —it is confidently declared to be "only a.passing discomfort." ;Writcs tho Chief iHcalth Officer in earnest or in jest ? : From a century's' mass of evidence as to tho serious, disastrous, and often fatal effects of vaccination, tako as specimens two medical opinions, and two extracts from the reports of two vaccination commissions. Dr. Bullard, one of Her lato Majosty's Inspectors of vaccination", and therefore writing as a public pro-vaccinist, affirms: "Medical men and parents aliko should drive from their minds'the idea so prevalent that vaccination is but a trivial operation at tho most. They should keep in mind that in tho act of vaccination : they are not merely imparting a protection, not merely performing a sort of magic rito, but that thoy are engaged in very truth in implanting the seeds of a _ disease."' (Viae'Prize Essay on Vaccination.) "If I had the desiro," wrote Dr. W. J. Col,li»Sj "to describe one-third of tho victims

ruined by vaccination, the blood would stand still in your veins 1" \ ■ c Tl>6 Royal Commission, tho majority ot which consisted of medical men and others professed pro-vaccinists, anil whoso report is a persistent pleading for vaccination, were compelled to admit, after seven years invrsti/'ation, that besides producing _ local inflammation and febrile illness, injuries and deaths, erysipelas anil scrofulous outbreak riiav result therefrom; that under some circumstances -such as neighbouring epidemic disea'so it is especially risky; and that, though formerly denied, it was no longer open to doubt that it is possible to convey before tho Royal Commission, Dr. Milium a instituted a medical commission, with tho view of vindicating the innocence of vaccination, but signally failed to do so. Four thousand medical practitioners worn circularised on the subject; each asked what diseases tho witness had in his cxponcnco seen to result from vaccination, lo tills question there wero only 3(0 answers, but they enumerated moro than 40 different diseases, including 126 eases of, erysipelas, .64 of cczema, 53 of syphilis, 22 erythema, nine of scrofula, as well as cases of cancer,- convulsions, blindness, abscesses, boils, tuberculosis, paralysis, meningitis, diseased bones, arid many others! Among •those others would be tetanus, of which doctors in America report' there have been many cases directly resulting from vaccination! \\ Jiat a '-commentary upon Herbert Spencer s dictum, that if once you interfere with the order of Nature, you do not know what may follow,-'where it may end. But among tho succeeding train of woes, "he included injury to' tho teeth and the eyes, and'this inevitably, for a direct infection with a compound of decomposed, animal matter, which immediately poisons tho blood inflames tho wholo' dermal system' must disturb dermal processses and deteriorate dermal appenddegenerating results have folfcyed vaccination ill'.every land, as pcstdence the Wandering Jew—not excluding,ew Zealand —as returned, troopers, post office employees, Christchurch scare victims, and not a fow in every colonial town could witness. "h®' experienced canvasser who in Auckland obtained a' year ago some 700 signatures to. a petition :for , tho repeal of tho Compulsory Vaccination Act, reported that he ooukl have got thousands if ho could have continued the work; arid that ho might , have spent nearly all his timo in listening to narratives of suffering and injury, or 'disease and death, resulting from "this most. odious'and detestable practice of vaccination.. .' Your space bids me pause. With your permission I will resume in a later issue—l am, etc., ' . ■ EDWIN COX. Cambridge, March 26, 1908.