What the press has said about the Gloucester epidemic and the report of the Royal Commission on Vaccination.

Date:
[1896]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: What the press has said about the Gloucester epidemic and the report of the Royal Commission on Vaccination. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    What the Press has said about the Gloucester Epidemic AND THE Report of the Royal Commission Vaccination. on From an article in the Times of August 1896. “ Of the general history of the Gloucester epidemic in its relations to vaccination it is not possible here to speak. A great deal of interesting information about it will be found in the Report of the Vaccination Committee of the Gloucester Board of Guardians, which may be obtained on application to the Secretary of the Jenner Society at Gloucester. To those who have any doubts on the value of vaccination as a protection against small-pox its perusal may be strongly recommended, for, if the evidence which it contains does not bring convic- tion, it is scarcely likely that any other will. That it has at any rate completely convinced the Gloucester Board of Guardians is evident from the fact that they are now prose- cuting vaccination defaulters with energy as great as was their previous indifference. But what is even more important still is that the apathy hitherto displayed by a large section of the community in Gloucestershire, who have never lost their faith in Jenner, has been shaken off. They have learned from the misfortune which has befallen the town that they also have a duty to discharge in regard to vaccination, and that it cannot be performed by sitting still and treating with contempt the fallacies and misrepresentations on which the anti-vacci- nationists found their attacks. Under the name of the Jenner Society they have established an organization, the object of which is ‘ to counteract the mischievous efforts so persistently made to discredit the name and work of Edward Jenner, and to bring home again to the mind of the nation, on this the centenary of his great discovery, the immense benefit he conferred by it upon mankind.’ This object the Society purposes, amongst other ways, to accomplish ‘ by collecting, diffusing, and popularizing knowledge in regard to the history of small-pox before vaccination and to the evidence which has been accumulated during the last hundred years of the value of vaccination as a preventive of that disease, so much of which is embedded in publications which are not available for popular use.’ The Society also hopes to be able to do useful work in focussing public opinion on matters which, now that theVaccination Commission has presented its report, must come under the consideration of Parliament. As the Society has the Earl of Ducie, the Lord Lieutenant of the County, for its President, and includes on its Council all the leading men of Gloucestershire, it may be assumed that it will not speak without some weight.”