Licence: In copyright
Credit: Dr. Walter Robert Hadwen's works. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.
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![of all these is placed to the credit of No. 5. Now comes a diffi- culty in the interesting link. Dr. Coupland says:—It is hardly consistent with the ordinary ideas of the incubation period of smallpox to believe that the child E. M. was directly infected by No. 5, although it is certain by the fact that this girl [No. 5] did come into the house before her illness was declared. She was removed to hospital on September 28, i.e., twenty-three days before the child was taken ill in the M. family. So that in spite of the appallingly long period to which Dr. Coupland is obliged to stretch the time of incubation in order to make it fit in with his theory and complete his list of singular coincidences, he is certain No. 5 infected the child because the girl came into the house before her illness was declared. But here again Dr. Coupland is at sea, the parents of the child declare they never knew the girl, and that she never at any time came into their house. Nor did his children ever visit the girl's house, or even K.'s house, and this is corro- borated by the girl herself. Now, how does vaccination come off here? There were ten in the M. Family. Four of them took smallpox. Two out of the four were vaccinated. The father was revaccinated on November 7th, and yet was attacked with smallpox upon the day after the ideal perfection period of protection—twelve days-— had concluded, viz., November 20th. Dr. Coupland says nothing about this, and on turning to his official list, I simply find recorded— vaccinated in infancy ! THE EARLY HISTORY A HOAX. This concludes his Early History of the Outbreak, from which, he says, it is possible other cases may have arisen, and, may we not add, could doubtless have been manufactured with equal facility, although Dr. Coupland modestly remarks: It is not possible to trace the connections between the cases that now began to increase in number ! Thus it will be seen that Dr. Coupland has been completely hoaxed, and the whole of his Early History of the Epidemic, with its connecting links and illustrating diagram, is a pure illusion from beginning to end. Are we not justified in concluding that the publication of such an invention, issued by Government authority at public expense upon the pages of a Government Blue- book, for no other purpose apparently than to advocate a generally accepted whimsical medical theory, is little short of a public scandal? What confidence, I ask, can the public have in the dogmatically asserted Conclusions attached to the so-called investigation when they emanate from the pen of an official who has allowed himself to be hoodwinked in so flagrant a manner, and who apparently has never taken the least trouble to test the truth of his statements? n • For the next four months after the singular coincidences above mentioned, the disease dragged on its weary way; isolated cases sprang up here and there, mainly confined to the south halt](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21361691_0304.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
