Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Part I The Road to Compulsion
- Part II The Reign of Compulsion
- 14 A Loathsome Virus
- 15 A Cruel and Degrading Imposture
- 16 Ten Shillings or Seven Days
- 17 Death by Non-Vaccination
- 18 The Great Pox
- Part III The Retreat from Compulsion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
15 - A Cruel and Degrading Imposture
from Part II - The Reign of Compulsion
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Part I The Road to Compulsion
- Part II The Reign of Compulsion
- 14 A Loathsome Virus
- 15 A Cruel and Degrading Imposture
- 16 Ten Shillings or Seven Days
- 17 Death by Non-Vaccination
- 18 The Great Pox
- Part III The Retreat from Compulsion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Among the most prominent opponents of vaccination were two members of the medical profession, one more eminent than the other. Edgar Crookshank, Professor of Comparative Pathology and Bacteriology and Fellow of King's College, London, wrote a History and Pathology of Vaccination in two volumes (1889). The Preface to the first volume described how, following some investigations into an outbreak of cowpox, he became convinced that
the commonly accepted descriptions of the nature and origins of Cow Pox were purely theoretical […] I gradually became so deeply impressed with the small amount of knowledge possessed by practitioners concerning Cow Pox, and other sources of Vaccine Lymph, and with the conflicting teachings and opinions of leading authorities, in both the medical and veterinary professions, that I determined to investigate the subject for myself.
The essence of Crookshank's argument against vaccination was that the power of conferring immunity to smallpox, claimed for cowpox by disciples of Jenner, was a fallacy because what was injected under the guise of cowpox was in fact smallpox. The origins of this controversy lay in the earliest period when, with supplies of cowpox very scarce for lack of suitable outbreaks to draw on, some confusion had occurred over a consignment of alleged cowpox despatched by Jenner from London to a colleague in the country. Detractors claimed that, whether by accident or from lack of scruple, Jenner had in fact supplied his friend with smallpox lymph, and that since the material in question had formed the basis for thousands of ‘ingrafting’ operations carried out from arm to arm right down to Crookshank's own time, any immunity ascribed to cowpox should really be ascribed to the effects of smallpox. This theory was revived in recent times but has been investigated by Baxby who finds no basis for it.
Crookshank's general conclusion as a result of his investigation was that the medical profession had been misled by Jenner, by his biographer, Baron, by the Reports of the National Vaccine Establishment and by a want of knowledge concerning the nature of cowpox, horsepox and other sources of ‘vaccine lymph’:
the pathology of [cowpox] and its nature and affinities have not been made the subject of practical study for nearly half a century.
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- The Vaccination ControversyThe Rise, Reign and Fall of Compulsory Vaccination for Smallpox, pp. 188 - 201Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2007