Introduction

This series hopes to explore the history of British Antivaccinationism and Vaccine Scepticism.  It is divided into 7 main eras: the period of Inoculation, 1721-1798; the introduction of vaccination, 1798-1853; the imposition of mandates, 1853-1902; the remaining history of the National Antivaccination League, 1902-1972; DTP Vaccine Scepticism 1972-1998; Andrew Wakefield and vaccines cause autism, 1998-2019, and Covid 19, 2020 to present. Because most active resistance to vaccination is clustered in this period between 1853 and 1902, Part 3 will have three sub-parts, discussing initial intellectual resistance in John Gibbs and Charles Pearce, the later intellectual resistance of William White, Charles Creighton, and Edgar Crookshank, and popular class resistance.

The Vaccine Mandate

In 1853, the United Kingdom introduced mandatory smallpox vaccination.  There was a fine of 20 shillings introduced for non compliance. William White covers the introduction of this mandate in detail in his 1885 book, Story of a Great Delusion. According to White, the mandate was introduced because of the organised interests of the medical profession. There was a lack of discussion on the bill in Parliament, and White states it was an “act for application to the vulgar”, i.e. the working classes. In 1861 and 1867, the level of compulsion was increased, the 1867 amendments made non vaccination a continuous offense and gave the state the power to impose multiple fines.

Prior to the mandate, there was no organised antivaccinationism. There was personal distrust of vaccination among people, particularly the working class, and an apathy of not pursuing vaccination. The mandate triggered new wave of intellectual antivaccinationism, as well as popular vaccination resistance.

John Gibbs

John Gibbs was one of the first to write pamphlets against the vaccine mandate. In 1855 he wrote a letter opposing the mandate. He argued that the mandate was an attack on liberty, and that legislators freely admitted their ignorance on vaccination – relying only on the opinions of the medical profession to pass the bill. He argued that there were statistical issues with the case for vaccination, as there was evidence that smallpox was simply replaced by other causes of death and that there was no decline in the death rate due to vaccination. He also pointed to other diseases spread by vaccination,  such as erysipelas (a form of skin rash and swelling), tuberculosis and syphilis.

He drew attention to the moral issues with government forcing a medical intervention on the people and that this opposed self responsibility. Vaccination was in his view “a state religion in physic”.

Charles Pearce

Charles Pearce was an editor of a medical journal, who received papers from Gibbs, and as a result became an antivaccinationist. In 1868, he authored the short book, Vaccination Its Tested Effects, arguing that “vaccination is a crime against nature”.

Pearce points to the theory behind vaccination, that is the idea that cowpox and smallpox are “governed by the same laws” as an error believed by Jenner. He argues that vaccination is not even practised according to Jenner’s theory, since Jenner believed in a chain from horse-cow-human. Vaccine lymph had been spread from human to human for many decades at this point, and had not been anywhere near passage via a cow. He also pointed to the introduction of revaccination as a contradiction to Jenner’s theory of life long protection from vaccination.

He argued that smallpox vaccination did not save lives, by arguing that smallpox increased longevity if you survived, by the fact that there was an increase in mortality from measles after compulsory vaccination was introduced, and that smallpox vaccination could spread syphilis. He points out that there were ups and downs in smallpox due to the laws of epidemics. He believed sanitation and hygiene were the best methods to combat smallpox mortality.

Conclusion

There was increased intellectual resistance to vaccination after the smallpox vaccine mandate was introduced. This would continue to develop further, and British antivaccinationism would reach its peak between 1880-1902 with the cases made by William White, Charles Creighton and Edgar Crookshank against the practise.