RC 
 
 183.6 
 
 G8L57 
 
 lVY 
 
 STATE 
 VACCINATION
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 STATE VACCINATION 
 
 WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO 
 
 SOME PRINCIPLES OF ANCIENT JUDAISM. 
 
 BY 
 
 J. H. LEVY, 
 
 it Ln/jii- nitf! Economic* nt the Bh'kln'<-l; Institution 
 tin/ tjie City of London College. 
 
 P. S. KING & SON, 
 l-J & 14. KIXC STREET, WESTMINSTER, S.W. 
 
 I'fire 7'n;>jjrnr, .
 
 STATE VACCINATION : 
 
 WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO SOME 
 PRINCIPLES OF ANCIENT JUDAISM. 
 
 HORTLY before Mr. J. H. Levy was about to start for 
 the Continent, in September, 1896, in order to attend 
 the Berne Conference of the British, Continental, and General 
 Federation for the Abolition of State-Regulated Prostitution, 
 he was asked to speak at a public meeting to be called to 
 express sympathy with a fellow Israelite, Mr. Henry Levy, 
 who had been imprisoned because he declined to have his 
 child vaccinated. To this invitation Mr. J., H. Levy was 
 obliged to plead that he would be in Switzerland at the time 
 of the meeting ; but, in the letter conveying this plea, he 
 idded, inter alia : " The people of my own race, it seems to 
 me, are specially bound to detest the inoculation mania and 
 all its works. Anything more opposed to the spirit of the 
 ancient Judaism than the insertion of an animal disease in 
 the human body I find it difficult to conceive." 
 
 This letter was read to the meeting, and the above passage 
 was reported in the press. Upon this, Mr. Harris, also an 
 Israelite, and a member of the Whitechapel Guardians, who 
 had prosecuted Mr. Henry Levy, wrote to Dr. Adler, the 
 Chief Rabbi, " asking his opinion on vaccination." 
 
 It should be explained, for the benefit of the Gentile 
 world, that Jews have no ecclesiastical chief such as Roman 
 Catholics have in the Pope. Dr. Adler is not only a merely 
 local Chief Rabbi, but his jurisdiction does not extend over 
 all Jewish congregations in England. The Reform Jews 
 who differ from the Orthodox Jews much in the same way 
 as Protestant Christians differ from Catholics have no such 
 chief, and even the Sephardic section of the Orthodox Jews have 
 their own Hhakham, the present holder of that office being 
 
 1972739
 
 a man of wide erudition who is universally held in esteem. 
 This diversity may astonish most people ; and this is little 
 to be wondered at, since Mr. Israel Abrahams confesses 
 that, when he undertook to write his recent very meritorious 
 work, Jewish Life in the Middle Ayes, he " did so under 
 the impression that Jewish life was everywhere more or less 
 similar, and that it would be possible to present a generic 
 image of it. Deeper research has completely dispelled 
 this belief. Possibly," he adds, " the reader may note with 
 disappointment that my book reveals no central principle, 
 that it is a survey less of Jewish life than of Jewish lives."* 
 And, a few pages farther on, he says : " Jewish life gained 
 more than it lost by the freedom of the individual, the 
 freshening of the atmosphere, and the avoidance of clerical 
 arrogance."! 
 
 The Chief Eabbi replied to Mr. Harris's question that 
 Mr. J. H. Levy " was not justified in making the statements 
 contained in the letter ; that the most competent medical 
 authorities were agreed as to vaccination being a prophylactic 
 against small-pox, and added that its use was in perfect 
 consonance with the letter and spirit of Judaism. " 
 
 To this Mr. J. H. Levy replied, in the East London 
 Observer and the East London Advertiser : " Those who 
 wish to find the basis of my opinion should turn to Leviticus, 
 chapter 19, verse 19, and Deuteronomy, chapter 22, verses 9 
 to 11. The crossing of animal with animal, and even of 
 vegetable with vegetable, is here forbidden. I need scarcely 
 tell even casual readers of the Pentateuch that still more is 
 the crossing of the animal and the human forbidden. And 
 this is not a mere casual or isolated law. It is harmonious 
 with the whole body of laws relating to regeneration on the 
 one hand, and hygiene on the other. What is the use of the 
 elaborate regulations prohibiting the use of unclean animals 
 as food, if animal filth of the most virulent description is 
 introduced directly into the human blood ? What is the 
 sense of turning up one's nose at a grafted orange, and grafting 
 on a healthy child microbic ' lymph ' from a diseased cow ? 
 
 "I repeat, sir, that the whole of the modern inoculation 
 system, from Jenner to Pasteur and Koch, is abhorrent to the 
 
 * Introduction, p. xxiv. t P- 37.
 
 spirit of ancient Judaism. When this system of poisoning 
 our blood in order to keep our blood from being poisoned has 
 passed to that Hades of historic superstitions where are to 
 be found blood-letting and salivation, and other once 
 fashionable fads patronised by ' the most competent medical 
 authorities,' men will turn to that grand old system of 
 internal and external cleanliness which was of the essence of 
 the ancient Judaism, and will recognise how much wiser it 
 was than the modern pseudo- scientific doctrine of salvation 
 by filth." 
 
 Mr. Henry Levy, who had so incontestably shown his 
 sincerity and devotion, seems to have doubted the possibility 
 of the authenticity of the Chief Rabbi's reply, as reported. 
 So he wrote to him the following letter : 
 
 159, Wentworth Buildings, 
 
 Whitechapel. 
 October 18th, 1896. 
 
 REVEREND SIR, Permit me for a few moments to encroach 
 on your valuable time in order to settle a very important 
 question which is arousing great interest in Whitechapel. 
 l r our name was mentioned by Mr. John Harris at a meeting 
 of the Whitechapel Board of Guardians, during a debate on 
 compulsory vaccination. Mr. John Harris said he received 
 a letter from you stating that vaccination was In consonance 
 with the letter and spirit of Judaism. 
 
 On my own behalf, and also on behalf of other friends, I 
 write to ask if your views have been correctly reported ? 
 This is a very serious matter for me. I have been taken to 
 Worship-street Police-court, and have been sentenced 
 to imprisonment, and I have endured imprisonment at 
 Pentouville Prison rather than to have my child's blood 
 contaminated by diseased matter called vaccine. Neither I 
 or any of my friends can for one moment think that you 
 would inculcate the duty of using disease as an ally in order 
 to guard against a disease which can only be fought by 
 cleanliness and purity. 
 
 In order to show you that I do not stand alone in this 
 matter, I send a cutting with this letter from this week's 
 East London Advertiser, in which Mr. J. H. Levy, who is 
 not known personally to me, writes on the same question,
 
 and I enclose a copy of a declaration made by Mr. Abraham 
 Harris, of Newcastle-place, and sent by him to the White- 
 chapel Board of Guardians. Asking the favour of an early 
 reply, 
 
 I am, Reverend Sir, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 HENRY LEVY. 
 To this letter the following reply was sent : 
 
 Office of the Chief Rabbi, 
 
 22, Finsbury-square, 
 
 London, Oct. 19th, 5657. 
 
 DEAR SIR, The statement of Mr. Harris is quite correct. 
 It seems to me a great folly to disobey the law of the land in 
 regard to vaccination, which has been instituted solely for 
 the welfare of the citizens of the State and in obedience to 
 the teachings of sound science. 
 
 Mr. J. H. Levy is not an authority on medical science, his 
 opinions on the subject have therefore no value. 
 
 Believe me, 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 H. ABLER. 
 
 To this second letter of the Chief Rabbi, Mr. J. H. Levy 
 replied as follows, in the East London Advertiser : 
 
 To THE EDITOR. 
 
 SIB, Some of my friends at the East End seem to expect 
 that I should make some rejoinder to the repeated personal 
 attacks of the Chief Rabbi. I do so very unwillingly. His 
 dialectical methods are not mine. He says I am "not an 
 authority on medical science," and that my opinions on 
 vaccination " have therefore no value." I suppose the 
 former of these statements means that my name is not to be 
 found in the Medical Directory. I have not bought a 15 
 medical degree, as Jenner did. But if, because of this, my 
 opinion adverse to vaccination is worthless, Dr. Adler's 
 opinion, that it is " sound science," must be held equally 
 destitute of value, for the same reason. But, Mr. Editor, I 
 altogether demur to the weighing of " opinions " in this 
 manner. The worth of a man's conclusions on any point
 
 are to be determined by the weight of the evidence he can 
 marshal in their support, not by any a priori judgment as to 
 his " authority." If I were to state that the square on the 
 hypothenuse of a right-angled triangle is equal to the 
 squares on the other two sides, and were to cite Euclid's 
 demonstration in proof of this, it would be no answer to me 
 to say: " You are no authority on geometry. I cannot find 
 that you have ever taken a mathematical degree, and your 
 conclusion therefore has no value." I did not merely 
 state my opinion on the point at issue. I expect no man 
 to share my opinion merely because it is mine. I stated 
 the reasons or some of them for the faith which is 
 in me. And I shall hold to that faith till some person 
 can show me that the balance of evidence is on the other 
 side. Mere dogmatic assertions, by whomsoever made, I 
 shall entirely disregard. Dr. Adler will find some difficulty 
 in converting the democracy of this country to his theory of 
 guidance by " authorities." What would be the state of our 
 laws now if we had consented to be led solely by lawyers ? 
 Our great steps in legal reform have been attained in the 
 teeth of strong opposition from high legal authorities ; and 
 even now the great difficulty in the way of ameliorating our 
 semi-barbarous penal code is to be found in the resistance of 
 judges and prison authorities. Where should we be with 
 regard to religious freedom and equality before the law, if 
 the course of our politics had been determined by the 
 ecclesiastical authorities ? Step by step, the emancipation 
 of Dissenters, Catholics, Jews, has been won in defiance 
 of opposition by the bench of bishops. And a similar 
 phenomenon is observable in medical politics. For twenty 
 years, a medical clique succeeded in inflicting on this 
 country that abomination of abominations, the Contagious 
 Diseases Acts ; and the same clique is now intriguing for 
 their re-enactment. Medical authority has sustained 
 vivisection that handmaid of the inoculation system till 
 all Europe resounds with the cries of tortured animals, and 
 men and women, debased by these cruelties, naturally turn 
 to hunting down the Jews, who are a minority in every 
 country in which they are found. I have confined myself, 
 in this letter, to dealing with Dr. Adler's plea for authority. 
 With the Vaccination Question, as a whole, and especially
 
 6 
 
 with its relation to the ancient sanitary system of my own 
 people, I shall have an opportunity of dealing at the meeting 
 in your neighbourhood at which I have promised to speak. 
 I have the honour to be, Sir, 
 
 Your obedient Servant, 
 
 J. H. LEVY. 
 25th October, 1896. 
 
 On Tuesday, 17th November, a full meeting (chiefly of 
 Jewish race) assembled in the large hall of the Jewish Social 
 Club, Mansell-street, Aldgate, to hear an address from 
 Mr. J. H. Levy on the above subject. " Owing to the view 
 the Chief Rabbi has taken, and the correspondence thereon, 
 intense interest was manifested, the lecturer being listened 
 to with rapt attention, interspersed with hearty applause." 
 Mr. H. S. Schultess-Young, Barrister-at-Law, presided. 
 Among those present were Messrs. Alfred Milnes, M.A., 
 H. N. Mozley, M.A., A. W. Hutton, M.A., W. L. Beurle, 
 A. G. Thorn, J. Hunns, J. H. Lynn, Secretary to the 
 National Anti- Vaccination League, C. Wilkinson (Lewisharn 
 Board of Guardians), J. R. Brunning (Jewish Board of 
 Guardians), J. Collins (Whitechapel Board of Guardians), 
 John Brown (Chairman, Mile End Board of Guardians), and 
 J. F. Raines (Hon. Secretary, Tower Hamlets Branch, 
 National Anti- Vaccination League). The Chairman briefly 
 opened the meeting, and the Hon. Secretary, Mr. J. F. 
 Haines, read the correspondence. 
 
 Mr. J. H. Levy then delivered the following address : 
 I have a favour, Mr. Chairman, fo ask of the Non-Jewish 
 portion of my audience. I desirs with their permission, 
 to address myself specially, this evening, to those of my 
 hearers who are of the same, Hebrew, race as that to which 
 I have always esteemed it my good fortune to belong. I do 
 this, not because I desire to foster in my fellow Jews a 
 political particularism to which I am strongly opposed. 
 Nor do I wish to throw theological prejudice into the balance, 
 in the decision of political and scientific questions. I 
 thought that my record would have saved me from such 
 imputations. But I have been asked whether I was about 
 to appeal to the gallery. Sir, there are some questions 
 questions in which the appeal is made directly to human
 
 sympathy and to the love of truth and equity on which I 
 would rather appeal to the gallery than to the stalls. The 
 culture that comes from mere wealth may be worth much, 
 but its tendency is not to widen the sympathies and 
 strengthen the love of justice. Quite the reverse. The 
 Hebrew prophets teem with warnings against the seductions 
 of mere riches, and the deadening of the sensibility to wrong 
 that too often comes with it. 
 
 I make no excuse, therefore, that I appeal to the masses 
 in this matter. The main point which I shall, this evening, 
 ask you to decide is not a medical one, or a theological one, 
 but a political one one which you must virtually decide 
 when you choose your representative in the House of 
 Commons one for the decision of which there is no 
 necessity that you should come to any conclusion as to 
 the efficacy of vaccination. I shall ask you to affirm that 
 compulsion in this matter is unjustifiable. I have, ever since 
 I first began to think over the matter, held that view even 
 when, in the fulness of my ignorance of the merits of 
 vaccination, I bowed to what those around me held to 
 be medical authority, and had my children vaccinated. 
 Even then I held that my acceptance of vaccination would 
 not justify me in forcing it on parents who did not accept it. 
 I may yield to my medical man's authority for myself, and for 
 the children who are under my care. But surely I can have 
 no right to force it on others who dissent from it. I 
 may hold that my neighbour's child is in danger ; and, if 
 I think so, it is my duty to try to convince him of that 
 danger. But I have no right to coerce him into the adoption 
 of my view ; and the fact if it be a fact that those who 
 agree with me are more numerous than those who agree with 
 him, gives me no such right. Mere numbers do not justify 
 us in interfering with oar neighbour's freedom, or minorities 
 and Jews are a minority in all countries would have no 
 rights at all. 
 
 It was just this sort of interference which happened in 
 the well-known Mortara case. Let us do justice to the 
 Roman Catholics who took the young Mortara out of the 
 hands of his parents and brought him up in their own faith. 
 They were, no doubt, quite sincere in the belief that the 
 Jewish child was threatened with a fate compared with
 
 -8 
 
 which even the worst attack of small-pox is a mere flea-bite. 
 I recollect the indignation which was expressed hero in 
 England at the abduction of the young Mortara ; but I 
 reminded many of those who gave vent to this feeling, and 
 who were vaccinal coerciouists, that they were flogging 
 their own backs. What could they say to the clerical 
 coercionists ? Nothing at all. The assumption on which 
 compulsory vaccination is justified would also justify every 
 orthodox Christian community in depriving all Jewish parents 
 of the religious care of their children. 
 
 Do not suppose that either the clerical or the vaecinal 
 compnlsionist is necessarily a bad-intentioned man. He is 
 very seldom that. When he has not taken the hue of his 
 thought from the flood of opinion in which he is submerged, 
 he is usually a puzzle-headed man who has lost his way 
 over an ethical question. He argues : " Either the 
 vaccination doctrine is true or it is false. If it is false, 
 there is an end of the matter ; but if it is true, why should 
 we allow parents to inflict on their children that is, the 
 whole British community of the future an unnecessary risk 
 of a horrible disease ? " He does not see that he is, by 
 arguing in this way, begging the question. We have no 
 means of dividing propositions into those which are certainly 
 true and those which are certainly false. All that it is in 
 our power to do is to judge as best we can by the evidence 
 presented to us ; and all that we have done or can do when we 
 say that a proposition is true, is that we have examined that 
 evidence for it and have convinced ourselves that it is true. 
 But our mere conviction does not justify us in persecuting 
 our neighbour who has it not, into conformity with oar belief. 
 This is a point which I should like to press on the attention 
 of Mr. Chillingworth, a member of your Board of Guardians. 
 He seems to think that the majority of the Vaccination 
 Commission have been guilty of some inconsistency, because, 
 while they believe, in a mild and qualified sort of way, in 
 the efficacy of vaccination, they recommend that it be not 
 enforced on those who are conscientiously opposed to it. 1 
 cannot see where the inconsistency comes in. In order to 
 make this inconsistent we should be obliged to affirm that 
 everybody is logically bound to compel others to conform to 
 every doctrine which he holds to be true and good.
 
 9 
 
 The truth is that it is not the majority of the Commission, 
 but the minority my friends Dr. Collins and Mr. Pieton who 
 have laid themselves open to a serious charge of inconsistency. 
 These gentlemen have drawn up an admirable report, showing 
 that the evidence does not support the vaccination doctrine, 
 and that its enforcement " is neither possible, nor expedient, 
 nor just." Still they go out of their way to recommend 
 that, with the exception of the repeal of the compulsory 
 clauses of the Vaccination Acts, those Acts should be 
 maintained. In other words, these gentlemen hold that 
 the vaccination doctrine is false, but that it should be 
 established and maintained at public expense, because, 
 forsooth, the majority are supposed to believe in it. 
 If a majority of the people of these islands believe in 
 vaccination, why should they not be left to support it out of 
 their own earnings? The more preponderant their numbers, 
 the meaner is their coercion of their fellow-citizens into the 
 payment of rates or taxes for the support of a medical 
 church from whose doctrines they conscientiously dissent. 
 What right the majority have to force the minority 
 to support a doctrine which that minority believe to be 
 false and hurtful, Dr. Collins and J^Ir. Pieton have not 
 explained. If the majority have this right of coercing the 
 minority of compelling them to work part of the day for 
 the support of that to which they are opposed, why have 
 they not also the right of coercing them further into 
 vaccinating their children ? In the downward march to 
 tyranny, it is only the first step which costs anything. 
 
 I have now completed the first step of my argument the 
 only step which is really essential for political purposes. I 
 have endeavoured to show that a vaccinationist majority 
 supposing it to exist, which is very doubtful is not within 
 its right in forcing its convictions on a dissentient minority. 
 Let those who believe in vaccination make themselves and 
 their children safe. If we are in error, the natural penalties 
 of our mistake will surely be heavy enough. Let the 
 vaccinationists look on in calm security, while we are swept 
 off the face of the earth as the result of our contumacy. 
 
 Let me now take you one step farther. Not only would 
 you be doing wrong, if convinced of the truth of the 
 vaccination doctrine, to force that doctrine on others who are
 
 10 
 
 unconvinced ; but I hold that the arguments in favour of 
 vaccination are altogether worthless, and that the practice 
 itself is " a grotesque superstition." 
 
 Jenner, the founder of vaccination, was apprenticed to a 
 country surgeon, and afterwards was sent to be a pupil of 
 John Hunter. He made himself useful to Hunter, and at his 
 house met Banks, who afterwards became President of the 
 Royal Society. In 1772, he returned to the country and 
 set up as a medical practitioner. On 13th March, 1788, he 
 read his paper on the cuckoo, before the Royal Society ; and 
 in the following year, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal 
 Society. In all this, his acquaintance with Hunter and 
 Banks no doubt stood him in good stead. - 
 
 What I think about this paper on the cuckoo you may 
 read in my little essay entitled, " The Bird that Laid the 
 Vaccination Egg." But it was this piece of shoddy science 
 on which Jenner afterwards traded ; and when the value of 
 his vaccination nostrum was challenged by Dr. Ingenhousz, 
 he promptly stood on his position as an F.R.S. 
 
 Jenner found that the Gloucestershire dairy-maids were 
 sometimes afflicted with a disease of the hands, which they 
 caught from the teats and udder of the cow, and which they 
 called cow-pox. A legend had grown up among these 
 uncultured people that cow-pox acted as a preventive of 
 small-pox. This legend was perhaps based on nothing 
 more than the fact that the names of the diseases both ended 
 with the syllable " pox." One of the oldest ideas to be 
 found in the folk-lore of medicine is that maladies are to be 
 cured by that which in some way resembles them, the 
 resemblance often being merely in the names and not 
 in the things. Thus, the bite of a dog was to be cured 
 by the root of the dog-rose. Pliny says that dogs have 
 a worm under their tongue which, carried three times 
 round the fire, is given to persons bitten by a mad 
 dog, to prevent hydrophobia. We have here the germ of 
 Pasteurism. 
 
 Jenner adopted this Gloucestershire legend, and called 
 cow-pox variola vaccines, which, being Latin, would go far 
 with some people to establish its scientific value. The 
 medical profession being very much in want of a line of 
 retreat from the position they had taken up on small-pox
 
 11 
 
 inoculation, adopted vaccination without such examination 
 as they might otherwise have given to it. 
 
 How was the case for vaccination made out ? Some 
 people seem to think it was by statistics ; but they forget 
 that these statistics could not be in existence till vaccination 
 had already been adopted. The attempt was made, in the 
 early history of vaccination, to establish it by experiment. 
 These experiments were of course performed on human 
 beings. Of their utter recklessness I will give you a single 
 instance. 
 
 " On the 16th of March, 1798, Jenner took virus from a 
 sore upon the hand of a stableman, Thomas Virgoe, who 
 had been infected while washing the heels of a greased mare, 
 and inoculated it upon the arm of John Baker, aged five 
 years. The record of the experiment is sufficiently brief : 
 ' He became ill on the sixth day with symptoms similar to 
 those excited by cow-pox matter. On the eighth day he was 
 free from indisposition ' So far as the text is concerned, 
 that is all. A coloured plate is given of the boy's arm, 
 representing a stage of the infection probably later than the 
 eighth day, although we are left to guess the date ; the 
 large, whitish vesicle has fallen in, there is evidently a sore 
 of some depth beneath the brown sloughing cuticle and 
 there is an angry, brick-red zone of erysipelas for some 
 distance around. If the child was free from indisposition on 
 the eighth day, it was only because the full force of the 
 filthy infection had still to be felt. A mere look at the 
 collapsed vesicle in the picture will satisfy any practised eye 
 that sloughing ulceration was imminent, and the brick-red 
 colour of the skin around is equally ominous. 
 
 "There is no doubt that Jenner intends the narrative of 
 this child's inoculation with horse-sore virus to conclude 
 with the reassuring statement that, on the eighth day, he 
 was free from indisposition. It is only in a footnote on a 
 subsequent page, inserted to explain why John Baker was 
 not tested with small-pox after being horse-greased, that we 
 read : ' The boy was rendered unfit for inoculation from 
 having felt the effects of a contagious fever in a workhouse 
 soon after the experiment was made.' The child, it appears, 
 was rendered unfit for inoculation by unhappily becoming a 
 corpse ; he felt the effects of a contagious fever, soon after
 
 12 
 
 the experiment was made, to some purpose, for he died 
 of it."* 
 
 Jenner launched a large number of medical men on these 
 experiments, which were conducted in the most unintelligent 
 manner. In reading the account of these experiments, one 
 scarcely knows which to wonder at most, the absence of 
 logic, or the absence of common humanity, of those who 
 indulged in them. 
 
 From Jenner's day to this, experimentation on the lower 
 animals and human beings has grown concurrently with the 
 extension of the inoculation system. All Europe resounds 
 with the cries of tortured animals, the victims of sham 
 science ; and the hospitals are made use of for like experi- 
 mentation on human beings. Thirteen years ago a prominent 
 medical man put forward and defended, in the pages of the 
 Standard, the practice by which the poor in our hospitals 
 " are made use of otherwise than for treatment" by which 
 they are used as corpora vilia, vile bodies, upon whom 
 experiments are tried for the benefit of others. When I 
 called attention to this, later on, in the Health Section of 
 the Social Science Congress, not one of the medical men 
 present repudiated this monstrous doctrine. 
 
 So much for the moral aspect of these experiments. Now 
 a word as to their logical aspect. The majority of the 
 Vaccination Commission contend that, " if Jenner was an 
 honest witness, it is scarcely possible to believe that ' the 
 experiments of inoculation ' with small-pox after vaccination 
 showed that the latter had no protective influence." But, 
 in the first place, a scientific doctrine should scarcely rest 
 on Jenner's veracity, in which I for one have the smallest 
 confidence. And, in the second place, the analysis of these 
 experiments by Dr. Charles Creighton, in his excellent book 
 on " Jenner and Vaccination," and by Dr. Collins and 
 Mr. Picton, in their portion of the Report, are conclusive 
 against their logical value as a sufficient foundation for the 
 vaccination doctrine. What can be the use of appealing to 
 Jenner's trustworthiness as a witness for the success of the 
 variolous test when we have plenty of uncontested cases of 
 persons recently vaccinated taking small-pox and dying of it? 
 
 * Jenner and Vaccination. By Charles Creighton, M.D., pp. 66-7.
 
 13 
 
 As regards the statistics, you must bear in mind that the 
 statements summed up in them are statements made by one 
 of the parties to this controversy, and the one which is 
 pecuniarily and professionally interested in the defence of 
 vaccination. Dr. J. H. Bridges, in the current number of 
 the Positivist Review, writing of the risks attendant on 
 vaccination, says : " Medical statistics cannot be quite trust- 
 worthy on this point, from the nature of the case. A doctor 
 vaccinating a child will obviously be unwilling to say that 
 vaccination did harm, unless he is a man above the ordinary 
 standard of courage and conscientiousness." Now this 
 same consideration applies to the medical statistics of 
 vaccination generally. This bias, which Dr. Bridges is 
 candid enough to admit, vitiates the medical discrimination 
 between vaccinated and unvaccinated cases of small-pox. It 
 vitiates the grouping of the figures which determine the 
 statistical results. It vitiates the inferences which are 
 drawn from those results. 
 
 There is nothing the public is more helpless about than 
 statistics. The remark is frequently heard that statistics 
 can be made to prove anything. But this, of course, 
 is so only because fallacious methods of proof are accepted. 
 The medical profession, who are, as a body, very deficient in 
 logical training, are as ignorant as other people on this 
 subject. They are no authorities at all on any statistical 
 matter. 
 
 Not only is the enforcement of vaccination a most 
 iniquitous invasion of parental rights, but vaccination itself 
 is utterly valueless as a prophylactic against small-pox ; its 
 use is attended with very grievous risks, and it draws off" 
 attention and energy from efficacious methods of combating 
 disease. 
 
 And now I have a few words to say to you, in conclusion, 
 on the specially Jewish aspect of this question. We people 
 of Hebrew race have passed through many centuries of the 
 most terrible persecution persecution of which there has 
 been a cruel revival in our times. We have been shut out 
 from occupations which give vigour to the frame. We have 
 been shut up in unwholesome Ghettos. We have suffered 
 all the mental strain which is involved in insecurity. And 
 still we have come out with a physique which is a marvel to
 
 14 
 
 scientific men, which is a matter of just congratulation to 
 ourselves, and which ought to be a matter of serious study 
 for all men. Now a large, if not the largest, factor of this 
 result is, in my opinion, the wonderfully wise hygienic code 
 which Jews have made a matter of religious observance. 
 This code may be summed up as follows : (1) It was 
 forbidden to take into the human body any unwholesome or 
 diseased animal matter. (2) Personal cleanliness was strictly 
 enjoined. (3) Humanity and consideration towards the lower 
 animals was directly and indirectly made an object of constant 
 care. Some animals were entirely forbidden as food. Others 
 might be eaten, but individually they were to be submitted to 
 the closest scrutiny, so as to exclude diseased specimens. 
 Animals irregularly killed were not to be eaten, cruelty being 
 thus kept in check. The mixture of animals and plants of 
 different species, and still more the mixture of the animal 
 and the human, was placed under the strictest ban. 
 Cleanliness was not put next to godliness, but incorporated 
 in it. 
 
 If I have carried you with me so far, I think you will 
 agree with me that the spirit, if not the letter, of ancient 
 Judaism is antagonistic to that combined system of vivisection 
 and inoculation which Jenner may be regarded as having 
 initiated. I think I am right in saying that noshohhet would 
 kill for Jewish food a calf suffering from cow-pox. If I am 
 not right in this, I ought to be. But what could be more 
 absurd than to prohibit the eating of the flesh of such a calf 
 on account of its disease, and still taking the matter of that 
 disease and inserting it directly in the blood of our healthy 
 children ? This seems to me to be a clear violation of the 
 spirit of all the three branches of the ancient Judaic law 
 which I have mentioned. As unclean matter, as morbid 
 matter, as beastly matter, it is alike repugnant to the 
 essence of the old Jewish code to mix it with the life-blood 
 of a Jewish child. That is my opinion, and I am not to be 
 moved from it by any mere dogmatic assertion of ecclesias- 
 tical authority. The people of Israel were misled once before 
 by the ecclesiastical authorities in the matter of a calf, while 
 the prophet was seeking inspiration in the Mount. 
 
 Brothers and sisters of Israel ! Be reverent, as is your 
 wont, to superior intelligence, width and depth of culture,
 
 15 
 
 and loftiness of character. But be not cowed by the mei e 
 assertion of authority. Did not our prophet Nathan, in 
 vindication of justice, face the greatest authority in all Judea, 
 make him convict himself out of his own mouth, and say to 
 him : " Thou art the man ! " When the law of this country 
 forbade the election of Jews to Parliament, did Baron 
 Rothschild bow meekly to this law ? No ; he presented 
 himself time after time as a candidate, and got elected. 
 Alderman Salomons went still farther, and, in spite of the 
 law, presented himself in the House of Commons. Later 
 on, Mr. Bradlaugh insisted still more vigorously on his right. 
 There were no more loyal and law-abiding Englishmen than 
 these three men ; but they opposed a passive resistance to 
 an unjust law, and, if the road to the House of Commons is 
 not today blocked with religious disabilities, we owe it to 
 what these men and their supporters did for us. 
 
 If, when Lady Mary Wortley Montagu introduced 
 inoculation into this country, in the last century, the 
 Jewish authorities had been animated with the spirit which 
 nerved our prophets of old, they would at once have put in 
 a protest, on the part of the Jewish people, against this 
 doctrine of salvation by animal filth. A grand opportunity 
 was thus missed. We might have stemmed the tide of 
 inoculationist and vivisectionist superstition which has 
 since made such inroads in Europe. Even if we were 
 unsuccessful, the day of our triumph would come. The 
 feet of clay of this idol are being washed away by the 
 torrent of evidence which is being poured in upon them. 
 It is visibly tottering ; and the early years of the next 
 century will probably see its final fall. 
 
 Let us try to hasten that day. If you share my convic- 
 tions on this subject, petition the Local Government Board, 
 setting forth your conscientious objections to the vaccination 
 law. If any considerable number of you sign such a 
 petition, I do not believe that any British Government would 
 continue to force on you a system to which you had, in 
 respectful and temperate language, expressed yourselves 
 opposed, on grounds which are certain to command respect. 
 
 In the meantime, I ask you to agree to the following 
 resolution : That this meeting hereby expresses its opinion 
 that the vaccination laws violate important principles of
 
 16 
 
 hygiene and justice, and calls for the speedy abolition of all 
 provisions by which the action of those laws is made 
 compulsory. 
 
 This resolution was seconded by Mr. Alfred Milnes, M.A., 
 in a most eloquent and pathetic speech, supported by 
 Mr. Rooke, and carried without a single dissentient voice. 
 Mr. J. F. Haines moved : " That this meeting votes its 
 hearty thanks to the Whitechapel Guardians that there have 
 been no prosecutions since the imprisonment of Mr. Henry 
 Levy." Mr. J. H. Lynn seconded this in a brief speech, 
 and Mr. J. R. Brunning supported it. On this resolution 
 being put to the meeting, Mr. Defries (Beadle of the Great 
 Synagogue) interposed, and said he desired to make a few 
 remarks, which were cheerfully listened to. He confessed 
 to having learned much that evening. But he was a father 
 of fifteen children. In 1892, they all took small-pox. Some 
 were taken to the hospital ships. All had the disease mildly 
 and recovered ; but the message brought back from the 
 hospital ships was that all those who were not vaccinated 
 had the disease in a confluent form, and he thanked God that 
 his children were vaccinated. Mr. Milnes and Mr. Beurle 
 pointed out the errors in this statement. Mr. Beurle, who 
 is on the Small-pox Committee of the Metropolitan Asylums 
 Board, said he had seen upwards of 4,000 cases of small-pox, 
 in performance of his duties, in all shades of mildness and 
 severity, vaccinated and unvaccinated. Notwithstanding that 
 he had never been vaccinated, he had never taken the 
 disease, in facing the whole of those cases. Nor was 
 there any difference between the two classes of cases, 
 vaccinated and unvaccinated. One man whom he saw and 
 spoke to four hours before his death was covered a complete 
 mass of black small-pox. He asked him if he was vaccinated. 
 He answered : "Yes; in four places, and have three very good 
 marks." Mr. Lynn also mentioned that he went through 
 the hospital ships' books with the medical superintendent, 
 and they could not discover any difference between the two 
 classes of cases. Mr. Hunns moved a vote of thanks to 
 Mr. J. H. Levy. On seconding this, Mr. Collins, of the 
 Whitechapel Board of Works, took occasion to say that the 
 Vaccination Committee had not been discharged, but it had 
 been enlarged into a committee of the whole Board. The vote
 
 17 
 
 was carried by acclamation, and responded to by Mr. Levy in 
 a short speech. A vote of thanks to the chairman terminated 
 the proceedings of an earnest meeting. 
 
 On 2nd January, 1897, the following letter appeared in 
 the East London Advertiser and the East London Observer : 
 
 THE CHIEF RABBI ON " VACCINATION AND THE DIVINE LAW." 
 
 Sir, In his reply to Mr. Harris, of the Whitechapel 
 Board of Guardians, Dr. Adler stated that the use of 
 vaccination is "in perfect consonance with the letter and 
 spifit of Judaism." He contented himself with this 
 dogmatic statement and with an aspersion of my "authority." 
 He has now " gone one better " than this. The Jewish 
 Chronicle of the 18th December states : "We are authorized 
 by the Chief Rabbi to state that there is no foundation 
 whatever for the allegation reported to have been made at 
 the Worship Street Police-court on Wednesday last by a Jew 
 who had been summoned for neglecting to have his child 
 vaccinated that there existed an objection on religious grounds 
 to the use of vaccination. Since this process has been 
 proved by the most eminent authorities to be a safeguard 
 against small-pox, and inasmuch as an Act of Parliament 
 renders its use obligatory, a Jew who refuses to have his 
 child vaccinated at the proper time is guilty of a grave 
 infraction both of the Divine Law and the law of the land." 
 
 The " since " and " inasmuch " of the above are delightful 
 specimens of Rabbinical logic. They imply that everything 
 which is proved (to the satisfaction of Dr. Adler) by the 
 medical authorities which he considers the most eminent, 
 and is made obligatory by Act of Parliament, has the force 
 of Divine Law. What will happen to the Divine Law when 
 the most eminent medical authorities change their minds on 
 this subject and the compulsory law is repealed I do not 
 know, for I am under the impression that it is a principle of 
 Judaism that the Divine Law never changes. I desire, 
 however, to point out that when I wanted to find out what 
 ancient Judaism has to say on this subject I consulted the 
 Pentateuch, while the Chief Rabbi consults the Statute Book 
 and the British Medical Journal, and gives the result as the
 
 18 
 
 Divine Law. This method has no particular application to 
 vaccination. A short time ago the same sort of preponder- 
 ance of medical opinion backed up by an Act of Parliament 
 could have been pleaded for the system embodied in the 
 Contagious Diseases Acts. Were these also divine ? 
 
 As for Dr. Adler's pretension to decide for another man 
 that there exists no objection to vaccination on religious 
 grounds, this appears to me the height of arrogance. Every 
 man, Jew or not Jew, is the custodian of his own conscience, 
 and the judge of what that conscience permits for him in 
 the religious sphere ; and the right of any ecclesiastic to 
 come unsolicited between the individual and his own 
 judgment of religious duty is one which I hope my fellow 
 Israelites will never concede. 
 
 I have the honour to ba, Sir, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 J. H. LEVY. 
 
 At the meeting of the Whitechapel Board of Guardians, on 
 29th December, 1896, a letter was read from the Chief Rabbi 
 to the above effect ; and the Guardians consequently resolved 
 to issue summonses against several Jewish defaulters, who 
 were thus prosecuted as a direct result of the Chief Rabbi's 
 interference. We shall be much surprised if this do not 
 tend to hasten the downfall of that system of coercion which 
 Dr. Adler has thus helped to sustain.
 
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