In May 1796, Edward Jenner, acting upon ‘a superstition among the dairymaids of Gloucestershire that a person who had suffered from cowpox would never have smallpox,’
1 inoculated one James Phillips with lymph from a cowpox vesicle on the hand of a dairymaid: in June he inoculated the boy with smallpox. ‘…it was on the strength of this solitary experiment that Jenner had launched his discovery upon the world, claiming that cowpox was a prophylactic against smallpox, while to give some sort of scientific colour to the claim he labelled cowpox with the name "Variolae Vaccinae" (smallpox of the cow)...the picture of the whole of the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons swallowing the theory of an unqualified country apothecary, based on one totally unreliable experiment, seems scarcely credible.’
2 However, there was a very good reason for the medics’ rush to embrace the groundless myth and to lavish praise, credit and cash - £30,000 at late 18th century value, i.e. a large fortune - on the enterprising Jenner. Earlier, the Royal College of Physicians had declared, in an attempt to protect their inoculation from foreign criticism: ‘it is now held by the English in greater esteem and practised among them more extensively than ever it was before...the college thinks it to be highly salutary to the human race.’
In 1838, however, after the final straw - another fierce outbreak of smallpox due to inoculation - the authorities had, finally, seen enough; the practice was banned under threat of imprisonment in 1840.
This left the medical deities with severely dented egos and with a valuable source of income curtailed; a situation they were keen to reverse as soon as possible. Jenner's wheeze provided the opportunity.
‘The medical authorities who had solemnly recommended inoculation as beneficial had been compelled to admit that it was spreading smallpox and increasing the number of cases of deaths. Doctors were, therefore, glad to welcome what purported to be a non-infectious process for which so much was claimed...from that time the Government protected vaccination from enquiry and criticism. Failures were not considered and misleading statistics were accepted.’
3 Nothing changes.The smallpox vaccine is produced by shaving the bellies of calves and then making long slashes in the skin, into which are rubbed smallpox cultures. Fever sets in and the wounds fester; a scab forms over a reservoir of poison as the increasingly sick, immobilised animal is prevented from licking the wound to try to ease the intense suffering. After six days the calf is bound and strapped to an operating table, the vesicles are clamped and the mixture of skin, flesh, pus, blood and hair is scraped off, mixed, sieved and transferred to containers.
After this potion was injected into the blood of the nation's children the largest UK epidemic of smallpox ever known began: with a peak of 42,000 deaths in 1871-2 alone. The graph line of smallpox deaths, which would probably have disappeared around 1870, was still there in the 1920s as isolation eventually defeated the medically-created plague.
After the vaccine-induced fiasco, Leicester rejected vaccination and decided to rely on hygiene and sanitation. In 1892-3 Leicester had 19.3 cases of smallpox per 10,000 population; Warrington - 99.2 vaccinated - had 123.3 cases. The Warrington death-rate was over 8 times higher than Leicester. (Wallace: The Wonderful Century , 1898) Dewsbury also rejected vaccination and, with Leicester had the lowest death-rates in the country.
‘I remember Sheffield and its epidemic in 1887-8. No less than 98 per cent of the population had been vaccinated...the public vaccinators had reaped a richer harvest of bonuses for "successful vaccination" than those of any other town and yet they had 7,000 cases of smallpox. It originated and clung to an insanitary area of 175 acres of cesspits...called The Croft.
The medical profession helplessly called "vaccinate" and "re-vaccinate" - as if the public had not already had enough. At last the flood-gates of heaven were mercifully opened and the bountiful rains accomplished what 56,000 vaccinations had failed to effect...
I call to mind the case of one adult male I interviewed...He was vaccinated in infancy, had smallpox when eight years old and was subsequently re-vaccinated three times. That man died of smallpox...when the official report was published...owing to his having the eruption so badly as to cover his vaccination marks, he was actually declared to be "unvaccinated".’
4 In 1903 the USA seized the Philippines and set up a military dictatorship. ‘The first thing the US regime did was to enforce a country-wide vaccination drive. The Filipinos had been a healthy people living their simple, happy life out in the tropical woodlands with pure air, clean water, natural foods...Smallpox was almost unknown...
‘They did not want the shots, but they were rounded up...and herded into the vaccination centres for the shots of poison...the first large epidemic was in 1905...a continuous epidemic...to 1923 when General Wood started suppressing reports to make it appear that he had conquered smallpox and 'ended the scourge'...
‘In the remote islands...the Filipinos had a better chance to hide...in the cities the epidemics reached the point of a major disaster.’
5 After 15 years of intensive vaccination there were 47,000 cases and 16,000 deaths in 1918 alone.6 Smallpox was not the only effect of the vaccine campaign: ‘…in 1918-20...Malaria took 93,000, influenza 91,000, tuberculosis 80,000...dysentery, cholera and typhus together...70,000.’ 48
As an added bonus: ‘there was not one leper in the whole of the Hawaiian Islands before the noble work of Jenner reached them. By the nineties, 10 percent of the natives were lepers.’ 48
To test the effectiveness of natural immunity versus vaccination, the non-vaccinated staff of the naturopathic Kingston Clinic in Edinburgh challenged six doctors to join them in a smallpox isolation unit.
The medics had the very good sense not to take up the offer.
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