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1924. Had these dates been reversed, I tremble to think what might
have been the deductions drawn by enthusiasts for the supposed relation
between vaccination and polio-encephalitis."
Of course, the anti-vaccinationists would have claimed with rapture
that the epidemic of polio-encephalitis was entirely due to the
vaccinations, which amounted to about 100,000, had it not fortunately
happened that the epidemic of encephalitis occurred before the smallpox
outbreak and the vaccinations. Professor Wynn goes on to state:
"as every doctor knows, recent vaccination must be mentioned on a
death certificate; and if a recently vaccinated pedestrian were run over
by a motor car, the death would be attributed, in some quarters, to
vaccination." Professor Wynn also stated that " since 1917 the
United States Army has vaccinated some 4,700,000 of its personnel,
and the Navy 950,000, but I have heard of no outbreak of polioencephalitis
resulting from this proceding."
It is difficult to estimate what the cost of the recent outbreak of
smallpox in London has been. If the late Dr. Wanklyn's figure of
£200 per case is anything like the cost, it is obvious that the expenditure
for all London must have been enormous. The expenditure in
this Borough must have run into several hundred pounds, and, of
course, the actual treatment of the cases does not fall directly on the
Bon: ugh rates. Then there is the interference with industry, loss of
wages in sickness, and, in some cases, of employment altogether.
There has been serious interference with the ordinary work of the
Public Llealth Department for weeks at a time, and yet we are simply
told that matters must remain as they are.
As I have stated, I see no reason why smallpox should not become
as endemic as measles in this country. We cannot stamp out measles,
but we can stamp out smallpox. To say that compulsorily to remove an
unvaccinated contact from his work, or to insist on his vaccination, i
an unwarrantable interference with the liberty of the individual, and
that persons have had their goods sold up and gone to prison rather
than be subject to vaccination, merely means that there is liberty to
spread disease. Persons have gone to prison rather than give up what
they consider their right to beat their families, or rather than submit
to the coercion of supporting them. When the Earl of Shaftesbury
attempted to prevent the exploitation of children by employment in
factories, to quote from Sir Malcolm Morris's book on Public Health
development, " the abuses to which the unrestrained employment of
children had led were gross beyond description. Little mites who had
not long learned to walk had to toil twelve, or it might be thirteen
hours daily, under the vilest sanitary conditions for a penny a day.
Many persons who posed as friends of freedom, both as regards interference
with family freedom and freedom of contract, were so strong
in opposition that Lord Shaftesbury's first Bill was withdrawn. The
opposition offered to factory legislation in the name of freedom of