Smallpox is a member of the group of diseases, described as zymotic which originate in unwholesome conditions of life, and in common are diminished and prevented by the reduction and removal of those conditions.

In times when the laws of health were imperfectly understood, it was believed that by poisoning the blood with the virus of smallpox, or cowpox, a future attack of smallpox might be escaped. While many kindred medical practices have been discredited and forgotten, Vaccination, endowed by the State, has survived, and has entered into legislation, and is enforced with fine and imprisonment. It is in vain for Nonconformists to plead that they do not believe that Vaccination has any power to prevent or to mitigate smallpox, or that it is attended by the risk of communicating foul diseases. They are told they may believe what they like, but that vaccinated they must be, for the benefit of the rite is settled beyond dispute, and that only fools and fanatics venture to question what has been irrevocably determined.

It is to attack and overthrow this monstrous tyranny that the London Society has been established. The members desire to enlighten the public mind as to the history of Vaccination, as to its injury in communicating and intensifying other diseases, and as to the failure of the compulsory law to stamp out or even diminish the ravages of smallpox. Many too, whilst disinclined to discuss Vaccination as a medical question, or to surrender confidence in its prophylaxy, are opposed to its compulsory infliction. They maintain that every remedy should be left to justify itself by its own efficacy, and that of all prescriptions the last which requires extraneous assistance is Vaccination; for its repute is based on the fact that its subjects are secure from smallpox, and in that security may abide indifferent to those who choose to neglect its salvation. Even nurses in smallpox hospitals, it is said, when efficiently vaccinated and revaccinated, live unaffected in the variolous atmosphere. Therefore, they hold that to compare an unvaccinated person to a nuisance, as is frequently done, is to make use of an epithet that implicitly denies the virtue asserted for Vaccination, a nuisance being a voluntary danger or annoyance which another cannot conveniently avoid. They also hold that to establish any medical prescription, and to create interests identified with that prescription, is to erect a bar to improvement; for it is obvious that any novelty in the treatment of smallpox must, in the constitution of human nature, meet with resistance from those whose emoluments are vested in the established practice.

The London Society, therefore, claims to enlist the energies, not only of those who resist Vaccination as useless and mischievous, but also of those who, true to their faith in liberty, would leave its acceptance to the discretion of the individual. In the controversy into which they enter, they propose to employ all the familiar agencies wherewith in England revolutions are effected in the public mind and in Parliament; and they appeal with confidence for the sympathy and support of their countrymen. The Vaccination Acts under which they suffer have not been enacted with the full cognizance of the nation, but have been forced through indifferent Parliaments by the persistency of medical faction. The members of the Society are confident that, as soon as the truth about Vaccination is fully known and appreciated, the freedom they contend for will be conceded without fear, and that posterity will view with amazement the outrage upon human right and reason that is at present committed under the shadow of English liberty.

I would earnestly invite the attention of those who are concerned for the repression of wrong, and the promotion of human welfare, to the great and growing question of Vaccination. We hear on every side that we cannot be secure from Smallpox unless we have our blood poisoned with Cowpox in infancy, in adolescence, and at stated periods throughout life. The prescription is so unnatural that only custom renders it tolerable; it excites suspicion and aversion wherever rationally considered; and dislike and disgust are justified by inquiry. Smallpox is not averted by Vaccination; and the virus introduced to the blood bears with it other diseases, even the worst of diseases, and enfeebles and predisposes the constitution to other maladies. In short, Vaccination under cover of maintaining the common health inflicts upon it serious and deadly injuries. And by a strange exercise of tyranny, this most mischievous superstition is made compulsory and enforced by fine and imprisonment; and Englishmen are dragged from their homes and treated as convicts because they refuse to submit their children to the abominable rite. Mr. Bright says, “The Law is monstrous, and ought to be repealed.” Yet is this monstrous law maintained!

Possibly you are opposed to Vaccination, or indifferent, or a believer. In any case, I ask you to subscribe for the Vaccination Inquirer. If you are opposed to Vaccination, it will stimulate and inform your opposition; if indifferent, it will remove your indifference; if you are a believer in the rite, it may convert you to a better mind.

WILLIAM YOUNG, Secretary,
114 Victoria Street, Westminster.