Researches upon 'spurious vaccination,' or the abnormal phenomena accompanying and following vaccination in the Confederate Army, during the recent American Civil War, 1861-1865 / by Joseph Jones.

  • Jones, Joseph, 1833-1896.
Date:
1867
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Researches upon 'spurious vaccination,' or the abnormal phenomena accompanying and following vaccination in the Confederate Army, during the recent American Civil War, 1861-1865 / by Joseph Jones. 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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    bones, and necessitating amputation in more than one instance. These accidents led to the belief amongst some of the prisoners that the Surgeons had intentionally introduced poisonous matter into their arms during vaccination. After careful inquiry we were led to the conclusion that these accidents were, in the case of these Federal prisoners, referable wholly to the scorbutic condition of their blood, and to the crowded condition of the stockade and hospital. The smallest accidental injuries and abrasions of the surface, as from splinters, or bites of insects, Avere in a number of instances followed by such extensive gangrene as to necessitate amputation. The gan- grene folloAving vaccination appeared to be due essentially to the same cause; and in the condition of the blood of these patients, would most probably have attacked any puncture made by a lan- cet, without any vaccine matter or any other extraneous material. It appeared also that the dried scab, resulting from the vaccina- tion of these scorbutic patients, was also capable of producing effects wholly different from the vaccine lymph of healthy indi- viduals ; and in some cases these effects Avere of a most potent and injurious character. The cause of Justice and Truth, demands at my hands, some- thing more, than this simple record, with reference to the acci- dents folloAving vaccination, amongst the Federal prisoners con- fined in Camp Sumpter. In the specification of the first charge against Iienry Wirz, formerly Commandant of the interior of the Confederate States Military Prison, during his Trial before a Special Military Com- mission, convened in accordance with Special Orders No. 453, War Department, Adjutant General's Office, Washington, Au- gust 23, 1865, the folloAving is written : “And the said AVirz, still pursuing his wicked purpose, and still aiding in carrying out said conspiracy, did use and cause to be used, for the pretended purpose of vaccination, impure and poisonous matter, which said impure and poisonous matter was then and there, by the direction and order of said Wirz, maliciously, cruelly, and w ickedly deposited in the arms of many of said prisoners, by reason of which large numbeis ot them, to-wit, one hundred, lost the use of their arms, and many of them, to-wit, about the number of two hundred, were so injured that they soon thereafter died: All of which he, the said Henry AVirz, well knew and maliciously