With regard to the other kind of cow-pox, which is commonly used, you put the matter from a child's arm into the calf's abdomen; and you stand a chance of getting some human diseases of the worst kind as well as cattle disease into the bargain. The third kind is small-pox virus itself with which Badcock inoculated no less than 20,000 people under the name of vaccination. Even Sir James Watson said he could sympathise with, and even applaud a father who would pay multiple fines and even undergo imprisonment rather than submit his child to
SUCH A GHASTLY RISK.
(Cheers.) He (Sir J. Watson) was then speaking about syphilis.
What about syphilis? (Hear, hear.) It is a very strange thing that up to 1853, when the Compulsory Vaccination Act was passed, the annual deaths from syphilis of children under one year old did not exceed 380; the very next year the number had jumped up nearly double, to 591; and syphilis in infants under one year of age has gone on increasing every year since until 1883, when the number of deaths reached 1,813. It has increased four-fold in infants since the passing. of the Compulsory Vaccination Act, and yet in adults it has remained almost stationary. Surely this speaks for itself. (Hear, hear). These deaths have only begun to decline since, in proportion as the number of vaccinations to births have declined. Therefore we have not merely children dying primarily from vaccination, but from a concurrent disease. The question is asked, "Cannot you get any pure lymph which will really answer the purpose?" Well, they have tried all sorts. They have tried cow-pox, horse-pox, horse-grease cow-pox, also goat-pox and that from the sheep; they even went to the buffalo, but the buffalo-pox stank so horribly that they had to give it up. (Laughter.) Surgeon O'Hara even advises that we should get some lymph from the donkey. (Renewed laughter.) One would have thought that the donkey was low enough, but someone has gone further. Dr. Monckton has suggested in the "British Medical Journal" that some small pox scabs should be powdered as fine as possible in a mortar, placed in an egg, stirred up into a kind of
SMALL-POX OMELETTE,
and after being put by for a certain time it is ready to be placed in the babies' arms. ("Shame.") That is what I may call a "fowl" concoction. (Laughter.) We have had almost as many animals suggested for the purpose of supplying lymph as there were in Noah's Ark-a regular menagerie of them; the vaccinators are in as big a muddle about it as ever, and yet they say "You must have the genuine variety or you will be sure to catch the small-pox." (More Laughter.) "Pure lymph from the cow!" It reminds me of the notice one sometimes sees, "Pure milk from the cow; animals milked on the premises." (Laughter.) "Pure lymph" calls to mind the green fields and pastures of the country! Can it be had, you ask? Well, Government Microscopist Farn, who examined the lymph sent out, was asked by Dr. Collins, "As a matter of fact have you ever
guaranteed the purity of lymph in your life?" and he had to acknowledge "No."
