Biological Department,
PARKE, DAVIS & COMPANY,
Home Offices and Laboratories.
Detroit, Mich., March 27, 1905.
Mr. Chas. M. Higgins,
271 Ninth St.,
Brooklyn, N. Y.
Dear Sir:
Your communication on the subject of vaccine virus has been received and contents noted.
What you say about the confusion existing in the minds of the medical profession as shown by medical text-books regarding the origin of vaccine is entirely true. No one seems to know positively the exact nature of this product. It would seem to us, however, that the theory that cowpox is but modified smallpox, is the most tenable one. Particularly does this seem true in view of the facts reported by Dr. Monckton Copeman, Director of the Government Vaccine work in London, that he had been able to take smallpox virus, transmit it to monkeys, from monkeys to heifers, and from heifers to man, the resulting vaccination on the human subject being identically the same as that produced by vaccine as ordinarily prepared. Furthermore it was shown that the persons vaccinated with this vaccine, when exposed to smallpox, were immune. In other words, the chain of evidence seems very complete, that by properly transferring the smallpox virus from man to animals of different species it became so modified in the transmission that, when applied to heifers, it produced typical vaccinia, and was found to fill every requirement as a means of protecting against smallpox when applied to unimmunized children.
On theoretical grounds it seems to us that this is a very plausible explanation of the origin of vaccinia. During Jenner’s time smallpox was very prevalent and nothing could be more natural than for persons recovering from smallpox to transmit the disease to the udders of cows, producing an infection which, on account of the difference in the species of the animal, modified the smallpox virus.
Regretting that we are unable to state more positively the exact relation between the two diseases and the origin of the seed as used by manufacturers, we remain,
Very sincerely yours,
This letter, like the preceding one, frankly admits the doubt, ignorance and confusion as to the origin of vaccine virus, and the practically unknown origin and nature of the seed virus used by manufacturers, except that it most probably originates in human smallpox, pure and simple. This letter is given in full on the left and speaks clearly for itself and is worth reading carefully on this most important point as it shows the crude, unknown and unscientific basis of all bovine vaccination which is proved out of the mouths of the arch-vaccinators themselves. See also page 82.
On September 1, 1911, at the age of eighteen years and eight months, Henry Plant was admitted into the Royal Navy, at Wolverhampton, as a second-class stoker, and passed a searching medical examination by a naval doctor at Birmingham. He was sent to Portsmouth, served on the “Victory” till September 24, and was then drafted to the “Renown.” Shortly afterwards he was vaccinated in three places, high up on the left shoulder. On October 19, 1911, he was admitted to the Royal Naval Hospital, Haslar, suffering from influenza. Severe shooting pains from the left shoulder to the finger-tips developed, and for sixteen days he was treated for rheumatism. After sixteen days’ intense suffering an operation was performed, an abscess was discovered, and from this time till the arm was amputated on July 9, 1912, the poor fellow suffered unceasingly. Four Members of Parliament took up the case, and the final result was a compassionate grant of £50 compensation and the offer of a situation at Devonport under the Admiralty. Representatives worked for nearly seven months to secure justice for the young man, and though the Admiralty have never admitted that the loss of the arm was due to vaccination, their action in compensating Plant is an admission of responsibility. The facts in this and the following case are taken from a circular issued by The National Anti-Vaccination League, London.
The Finchley Press, for November 13, 1914, contained the following particulars:
“Military Honours.
“FUNERAL OF A FINCHLEY DRILL-INSTRUCTOR YESTERDAY.
“Drill-Instructor Nichols, of 42, Sedgemere Avenue, who was well known in Finchley, has passed away at the age of fifty-one as the result of the after effects of inoculation. A big, strong, healthy-looking man, the news will come as a surprise to those who knew him.
“There was a large attendance at St. Marylebone Cemetery at the funeral yesterday (Thursday) afternoon, when Mr. Nichols was buried with military honours.”
A resident at East Finchley sent the following particulars to the Anti-Vaccination League of London:
“Mr. Nichols had been a Territorial for about eight years, and as a boy was intended for Sandhurst College, but circumstances prevented this. A keen soldier, and particularly clever at drilling recruits, he was being kept for Home Service. Understanding that inoculation was compulsory for the men, he underwent the operation as an example and encouragement.
Fig. 16. Sergeant H. Nichols, of East Finchley, England, died on November 4, 1914, from the effects of anti-typhoid inoculation.
“On Saturday, October 24, he was inoculated a second time on the left side of chest. He was taken ill at once and went home to bed, complaining of a dreadful beating on the top of his brain. On the Monday he reported himself ill and was given the half-day off with the others, but passed for duty for the Tuesday and Wednesday and sent on an eight-mile march. On the Thursday he woke up with severe trembling, later on partial paralysis set in with very severe delirium, kidney trouble, swollen tongue and many other distressing symptoms. Also his heart, which had always been passed as perfectly sound, was very bad. Two nurses and his own doctor (a believer in inoculation) attended him. On the day of his death, November 4, his pulse was 144.
“Sergeant Nichols was a very strong man, never ill, and looked more like forty than fifty years of age. His photograph indicates his ‘fitness.’ For some time before his death he did sergeant’s work and was known as full platoon sergeant, but the papers verifying this only came through, Mrs. Nichols understood, just about the time of his death, so that he is described as corporal on death certificate, but she says he had a sergeant’s funeral and is described as such on the gravestone.
“Mr. Nichols’ death was a great shock to his friends, some of whom saw him two weeks before death, when he was telling them how ‘very fit’ he was feeling, and how thoroughly his heart was in his work.”
The death certificate in this case gives the cause of death as:
1. “Anti-Typhoid Vaccination.” 2. “Pneumonia.”
We cite this fatal English case here out of many others on record in this country and England because it is so typical and such a plain example of many cases of sickness and death caused by typhoid vaccination since its adoption several years ago. How many cases of illness or death have been truly caused by this and other kinds of vaccination in the Army and Navy, in recent years, can probably be accurately determined only by a special committee of investigation appointed by the Commander-in-Chief or by Congress, and so selected as to be entirely free of any medical or professional interest or bias.
The office of the Surgeon General of the U. S. Army in answer to my request for information on this point admits that many cases of sickness have been caused by smallpox and typhoid vaccination in the Army in the year 1917, but states that no deaths have been caused by any form of vaccination in said year 1917, and that the data for the year 1918 are not yet available. The figures admitted for sickness from the two forms of vaccination stated seem to be serious and significant and are now given below in the words of the letter addressed to me from the Surgeon General’s office, March 15, 1919, as follows:
“The number of men admitted to sick report during 1917 for typhoid vaccination was 10,549, or a rate of 15.54 for each one thousand men.
“For smallpox vaccination the number admitted was 9,059, or a rate of 13.35 for each one thousand men.
“The total number of days lost as the result of typhoid vaccination was 28,679 and for smallpox 34,814.”
Now, I think that this shows a rather serious and significant amount of sickness which can thus incapacitate about fifteen men out of every thousand for several days, or about one and a half per cent. of the whole Army! And, surely, where such deliberately inflicted vaccinal diseases forced on the soldiers cause such an amount of sickness as is here admitted, they are also likely to cause death in some cases and do frequently cause death in many cases, as I have already demonstrated beyond question.
I, therefore, believe that the statement that no deaths have been caused in the U. S. Army from vaccination in 1917 is possibly not correct, and that a careful investigation by unbiased investigators would probably show that many deaths have been so caused directly or indirectly by the present barbarous system of compulsory vaccination, or inflicted disease, which admittedly causes so much sickness. Vaccinating doctors who believe in this barbarism of compulsory disease and force it upon their helpless patients under the false pleas that it is actually necessary, perfectly harmless and surely effective, have obviously an evil professional bias and interest to deny and conceal the real facts whenever some “complication” or “infection” caused by the vaccination arises and extends and finally kills the patient; and in such case the coercive doctor can very easily satisfy his conscience and compromise “statistics” by recording the death as due solely to one or more of the “complications” and not at all to the vaccination, which, as a matter of fact, I know to be a common thing with vaccinators in civic practice. Indeed, it is admitted in official reports that a similar careless practice as to false diagnosis and incorrect report of cause of death exists in some cases in the U. S. Army where, for example, actual typhoid fever in vaccinated men had been reported as “Influenza” and where death of vaccinated men from typhoid was entered as due solely to one of the complications such as “Peritonitis,” “Broncho-Pneumonia,” etc. See page 207, showing failure of vaccination in U. S. Army, from Report of the Chief Surgeon of the A. E. F. in France.
The English example of Sergeant Nichols, above given, well illustrates the very grave and sudden illness frequently caused by typhoid vaccination, sometimes resulting in death and usually involving some form of paralysis, heart failure, meningitis and pneumonia, as in this Nichols case, where evidently paralysis and pneumonia were the two chief complicating and terminal diseases which resulted in death. This fact is very significant here because meningitis and pneumonia are now two of the chief causes of death in the Army, and there is a strong chain of evidence showing that these two diseases have a positive relation to vaccination and are probably caused or aggravated thereby, and this point is most important in showing the dangerous infecting nature of vaccination both in itself and in its relation to and combination with other disease infections, as I will prove in the next paragraph.
It is a most interesting and suggestive fact that two of the chief causes of death in the Army are meningitis and pneumonia, and it is also most significant that the Army death-rate from these two diseases, both relatively and absolutely, is much higher than in the civil population, although the Army is composed of picked men of the highest physical type and best health, while the civil population contains all the weaklings and diseased and the average types. On this important point see the latest Report of the Surgeon General of the United States Army for 1918, covering the statistics of the year 1917. On pages 44, 236, 285 and 286 in this report it is shown that the chief causes of death in the Army in 1917 were pneumonia, measles and meningitis in the order stated, and that pneumonia causes about thirty-two per cent. of all deaths, measles thirty per cent., meningitis ten per cent. and scarlet fever about two per cent. As regards the greater frequency of these diseases in the Army than in the civil population, it is shown at page 236 that measles is two hundred times more frequent, meningitis fifteen times more frequent, pneumonia twelve times more frequent, and scarlet fever ten times more frequent in the Army than in the civil population! It is, therefore, believed that this extraordinarily high death-rate in the Army from meningitis and pneumonia, where it should be the lowest, is due to the extensive repeated and multiple vaccinations of various kinds now used in the Army, which greatly exceed the ratio of vaccination in the civil population. This fact, combined with the closely related fact that meningitis and pneumonia are regularly and constantly two of the most common complications in fatal cases of vaccination, furnishes convincing proof of the possible responsibility of vaccination for being the cause of the epidemics of meningitis and pneumonia in our excessively vaccinated Army within the last two years. For example, in many of the cases of fatal vaccination, which I have investigated, or have on record, for several years past, I find that pneumonia and meningitis figure as the chief complicating diseases which have caused death in acting as a secondary, double, or mixed infection with the primary infection of the vaccination, and that these two diseases are the most common complications together with septicemia and lockjaw in all fatal vaccinations. Indeed, the several fatal vaccinations illustrated in this chapter of vaccination horrors prove this point clearly, as most of them show pneumonia or meningitis or both as the fatal complications. For example, in the case of the Waters boy described on page 168, it appears from the autopsy and hospital report in my possession that pneumonia and meningitis were the fatal complications with the vaccination and are set down in these records as the chief causes of death.
Likewise, in the case of the English soldier and the English baby on pages 135 and 123, pneumonia appears as the complicating disease and the final cause of death in both cases. Furthermore, in Dr. Howe’s six fatal cases in 1902, described on page 113, one of which is illustrated in Fig. 11, page 110, it was found that severe lung lesions existed in four of these cases involving lobar and broncho-pneumonia and pleurisy. In the eleven cases of fatal vaccination taken from Mr. Loyster’s pamphlet on pages 145 to 159, meningitis figures as the fatal complication in three cases, paralysis in three cases and lockjaw in five cases.
In explanation of these several cases where vaccination has evidently acted as a primary infection, complicated with the secondary or mixed infection of some other co-acting disease, it may be stated that the germs of these very deadly diseases, such as lockjaw, meningitis and pneumonia, seem to be normally diffused widely in the human body, or in its surroundings, where they are normally perfectly inert, dormant and harmless, but are aroused into deadly activity by the dangerous primary infecting action of vaccination, which, being a pus or septicemic infection, seems to provide conditions for the growth or activation of the dormant disease germs which would otherwise remain perfectly harmless, just as gunpowder remains perfectly inert and harmless until touched by an igniting spark. And it would, therefore, seem that vaccination thus evidently acts as an igniter or “activator” to these dormant indwelling infections and causes the double or “mixed infection” which finally produces the deadly effect. In fact, it seems that most deaths are caused by double or mixed infections, or by several diseases acting in combination or complication, and that comparatively few deaths are caused by one simple disease acting alone. And it also seems to be a fact that the vitality of the human body is usually so great and its natural safeguards so many that it ordinarily yields only to a complicated attack of several diseases combined. If this view is correct, and it seems to accord with modern medical theories and experience, then the folly of the whole scheme of multiple vaccinations seems to be apparent in the evident fallacy of expecting to defend the body against natural infections by filling it with a whole series of inflicted infections which arouse the most deadly but dormant infections already in the body! Furthermore, many of these inflicted infections are almost purely experimental and unknown as to their really final or ultimate effect. In other cases the infections are known to be more or less dangerous and deadly in their possibilities, and even at their best have the effect only of giving immunity for a short while, perhaps for a few months, from such comparatively minor diseases as smallpox and typhoid fever, while they make the human body more susceptible to diseases of ten or one hundred times greater frequency and fatality, such as pneumonia, meningitis, measles and scarlet fever.
At this point we might again quote from one of the latest medical works and one of the leading doctors of to-day, viz., from Osler’s “Principles and Practice of Medicine,” eighth edition, 1918, page 330, where the point just argued is clearly recognized as to the effect of vaccination in exciting other diseases and is expressed in these distinct words:
“Influence of Vaccination Upon Other Diseases: A quiescent malady may be lighted into activity by vaccination. This has happened with congenital syphilis, occasionally with tuberculosis.”
Now, as regards the extraordinary prevalence of the two other diseases, scarlet fever and measles, in the Army, it is a rather strange and suggestive coincidence that these two deadly infantile diseases are more closely related to smallpox and vaccination than any other known diseases,—so much so, in fact, that in olden times they were actually considered as forms of smallpox and were not differentiated therefrom as in modern times; and they are, of course, very often, to-day, confounded with smallpox by inexpert doctors before the eruption is fully developed, or in mild types of smallpox which are often mistaken for scarlet fever or measles. These facts would therefore seem to indicate that the excessive smallpox or cowpox vaccinations in the army may have had some relation to the excessive measles and scarlet fever as well as to the excessive pneumonia and meningitis; and this point is worthy of careful consideration, to say the least, and cannot be consistently or logically ignored by any unbiased student of epidemic diseases and present-day medical practices.
I therefore submit, Mr. President, that in the many co-related and convincing facts above stated, there is surely presented a strong chain of circumstantial evidence showing that the excessive vaccination in the Army and Navy may be the cause of the excessive death-rate from meningitis and pneumonia, and in this showing there is surely to be found the strongest and most compelling reason why all compulsory vaccination should now be permanently abolished in the Army and Navy, and only voluntary vaccination permitted hereafter.
“The Medicine Man performs his Savage Rites.”
From Harper’s Weekly, February 24, 1912.
This picture, with its expressive title, is taken from an old number of Harper’s Weekly and shows how vaccination commences in the acts of wounding and infecting the forced, frightened, suffering and protesting children. The following pages will show how this medical savagery ends in the disabling and death of so many of our little children all over this land from blood poisoning in its many different forms, caused by or resulting from the vaccination. This slaughter of our precious children now reaches a most serious and shocking figure every year, far in excess of deaths from smallpox, and this fact is most persistently and shamefully denied and concealed by our vaccinating doctors, who, at present, control our Departments of Health and Vital Statistics. Surely this medical savagery, proved by so many flagrant and undeniable examples in the preceding and following pages, cries out to Human and to Divine Justice for a Radical Medical Reform, which should be either the Abolishment of All Vaccination or the Abolishment of All Compulsion.