The truth about vaccination and smallpox / by William B. Carpenter.

  • William Benjamin Carpenter
Date:
[1881?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The truth about vaccination and smallpox / by William B. Carpenter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    THE TRUTH ABOUT VYACCIN ATION AND SMALLPOX. The mind of the public is evidently so much unsettled as to the ‘protective’ influence of Vaccination, that I venture to think it may not be indisposed to listen to what can be said on the question by one who has watched its course for more than half a century, with scientific as well as philanthropic interest, and who claims as complete a freedom from Profes- sional prejudice as any outsider;—his sympathies in this matter being, not with the’‘‘ doctors,” but with the Publi, whose welfare is with him, not the primary, but the only consideration. It happened that my attention was specially directed to the subject at the very commencement of my Medical apprentice- ship, in 1828, by the number of cases which then fell under my notice of total and irremediable deprivation of sight by Small- ox during the first months of infancy; my master, Mr. J. B. ‘estiin, of Bristol, having a widespread reputation in the West of England and South Wales as an ophthalmic surgeon. Strict inquiry being made in every case as to previous Vac- cination, the reply was cnwariably negative. During the eight years of my attendance at Mr. Estlin’s Eye-dispensary, I must have seen at least a hundred such cases (I well remember reckoning the average at more than one a month); not one of these occurred after Vaccination, and in no case had the Smallpox been communicated by Inoculation, which, at the time I speak of, had fallen into general disrepute,—being performed only by a few old-fashioned country practitioners. A dialogue of this kind would take place between Mr. Estlin and the poor blinded infant’s mother :—‘‘ How did this child come to have the Smallpox?’ ‘‘ Catched it natural, sir.”’ ‘* Was the child never vacci- nated?”’ ‘‘Nosir.”’ ‘‘Whynot?’’ ‘‘ Because his (or her) elder sister (or brother) was vaccinated, and had sore ears afterwards.’’—Now sore ears are so extremely common among children brought up in poverty and dirt, that to attribute them to Vaccination is just as rational as it would be to charge it upon Vaccination that a child afterwards died in a teeth- ing-fit; yet it is a common habit, not only of uneducated persons, but of many who ought to judge better, to regard Vaccination as the cause of any children’s malady that may chance to follow it.
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