HC Deb 07 April 1879 vol 245 cc502-13

Order for Second Reading read.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. GIBSON)

, in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, he hoped the House would pass the Bill, which was a very short one. Its object was only to extend the operation of the Acts now in force in England into Ireland. He believed that it mot with the concurrence of most hon. Members from Ireland.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Attorney General for Ireland.)

MR. HOPWOOD

, in moving that the Bill be read a second time that day six months, said, he did not think that this Bill solely concerned hon. Members from Ireland. When measures applying only to England were before the House, Irish Members interested themselves in them on the ground that they were of Imperial concern, and might affect Ireland. For that reason, he ventured to interfere in a matter affecting Ireland alone, for this was part of a wider question—a much wider question. It involved the right to oppress a man, to compel a man by a series of convictions to do that which he honestly thought was dangerous to the health of his child. He did not despair of one day getting the ear of the people, who seemed to be at present possessed by the professional view of this subject; for now, when any alteration was suggested in the subject of vaccination, it was considered to be an offence against the whole profession and science of medicine, and everyone that raised the question was treated as a madman for casting doubt upon the subject. The House would remember that some years since, during the time that the late Government were in power, the question of vaccination was raised, and a Committee of this House sat upon the subject. That Committee consisted of 17 Members, and it made an unanimous Report to the effect that the law ought to be that no man should be oppressed by more than two convictions. That was accepted by this House, and the Bill went in that form to the other House. There, if his memory served him, within a day or two of the end of the Session, nine noble Lords overruled eight noble Lords in striking out the provision that was inserted in compliance with the wishes of the Select Committee. The Bill came back to this House with that portion erased from it; and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster) deplored the action taken by the House of Lords in striking out the provision, but felt himself compelled to advise the House to accept the Bill in its amended shape. But he said that it would be his duty, or the duty of someone else in his place, to attempt to amend the law in time to come. That law had never been amended, notwithstanding that there was an unanimous Report of the Committee of this House, and that the evidence given before that Committee showed that the present state of the law was an intolerable cruelty, and that it was an abominable thing that the Legislature should allow ignorant persons to have conviction after conviction heaped upon them because they held the view that it was best for the children's sake that they should not be vaccinated. In one case that he knew of, a man had been 40 times convicted. In another case, that of Abel, of Faringdon, the convictions were 25 or 26 in number, and the man was fined at different times £37. In that case, because he could be fined no more than £l as a single penalty, the magistrates had gone the length of encouraging the solicitor to charge an additional guinea for costs in proceedings to which there was no defence and no necessity for his employment. To escape unpleasant reflections, the money had been paid over to some local infirmary or other; but the unfortunate man, Abel, was compelled to pay it, and was prosecuted from time to time in the manner he had described. Another man, whose name he did not for the moment remember, had been several times imprisoned. Yet that sort of thing went on in the name of society, crushing down men by this law, years after the House of Commons had sanctioned an alteration in it. Then, upon the general question, were not parents warranted by what had occurred in refusing to have their children vaccinated? He would maintain that there was conclusive evidence that that was so, and he had moved for some Returns which the Local Government Board had furnished last year of the number of deaths from 15 different diseases of adults and infants, which showed a considerable increase in the deaths of infants under one year, that being the age during which they were usually vaccinated. It showed a considerable increase during those periods, and since the period when the first Vaccination Act came in, and when it was made compulsory. He could also show that these deaths resulted from such causes as were likely to be innoculated, and, as some high medical authorities stated, they were innoculated by vaccination. They were such maladies as erysipelas and syphilis. He thought that anyone who could deny the right of a man to refuse to have the veins of his children poisoned must be deaf to the ordinary considerations of human life. For many years it was denied that vaccination could communicate those diseases; but now there was a body of evidence from all sides which conclusively proved that vaccination produced those diseases in children. For a long time it was contended that there was no such thing as innoculation of another disease by vaccination; but it had been done repeatedly, and anyone reading the evidence given before the Committee would see that on very high authority it was said that it was possible to innoculate with a disease by means of vaccination. Even before that Committee, at first, some advocates of vaccination denied that those diseases could be so produced; but when Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson, one of the highest authorities on these matters, gave it as his opinion that it could take place, they were compelled to admit it. He stated that he knew a family of 11 all innoculated with the truly awful disease of syphilis, and he has since communicated other cases of a like kind. Yet it was said that the parent had no right to say—"I will not let my child run this risk." It seemed to him that the refusal of parents to have their children's veins poisoned was an imitation of the sturdy feeling which our forefathers had exhibited in matters of religious government. There were some things which transcended the powers of Government, and it was impossible to go on forcing men to have their children's veins filled with poisoned matter that had been fermented from generation to generation for 70 years since the days of Jenner. The last child vaccinated might be healthy enough; but what security was there that some of the persons from whoso veins the matter had been taken during the 70 years had not those diseases? Might it not well be that when parents came to see these results of vaccination they might doubt its benefits? He would point out that if the law were left undisturbed, and persons continued to be prosecuted by the law for objecting to have the process performed on their children, which they rightly or wrongly believed to be injurious to them, the result would be in the end fatal to the whole system. Recently some very high authorities had spoken on this matter. Many hon. Members might have read a paper by Sir Thomas Watson in a recent magazine, in which he stated that disease had been imported, and might be imported, by moans of vaccination. It was, however, to be observed that there were many surgeons who returned deaths as arising from erysipelas, or other diseases, when they really occurred in consequence of vaccination. If a man met with an injury, and erysipelas or some other disease hastened his end, it would not be thought right to say that erysipelas caused his death, but rather that the injury did. The fact was that surgeons did not like to tell the truth; they did not think it well to condemn the system. But was it right, under these circumstances, to go on forcing reluctant parents, by cruel fine and imprisonment, to do what they considered their highest duty to their children compelled them to avoid? It seemed to him that anyone who looked into the compulsory system that had been set up, and considered it, must be led to look further into the evidence upon which it was supported, and would inevitably come to the conclusion that there was very grave reason indeed to doubt the whole system. It was right and proper that everyone should have the courage of his convictions, and that they should be uttered in that place. For his own part, he could only say that he had no faith in the system. A gentleman had recently asked him whether he doubted these matters, for that in his time he remembered having seen great numbers of people frightfully pitted with small-pox, and that that did not occur now. In reply, he asked that gentleman whether, at the time when innoculation prevailed, the disease itself, the small-pox, was not given, often with the consequences of pitting and scarring; and whether, from the early part of this century, there had not been a considerable difference in the mode of treatment? It was well known that a process had been introduced by which it was possible to avoid producing these marks upon the patient. If medical gentlemen would have the candour to admit it, they would say that it was entirely the case. An authority who had studied the matter said that this disease was engendered, frequently by want of sanitary precaution. The disease had, in the past, like the plague, arisen from neglect of sanitary precautions. That had been proved, and although they had spent £100,000,000 upon sanitary precautions, and had vaccinated the population up to 95 per cent, yet not so long since an epidemic occurred that carried off its thousands in London. Before the Committee to which he had referred it was asserted by some eminent surgeons that in Scotland they had stamped out small-pox by vaccination; yet since that there had been a most serious epidemic of small-pox in Scotland. In Ireland they asserted the same thing, and said that they believed that if the population were entirely vaccinated a perfect immunity from smallpox would be secured. Since that time Ireland had been visited with a terrible epidemic of the scourge. The conclusion he came to under these circumstances was that vaccination was not so certain, and that the system was not so perfect as it was described. It was Jenner's boast that a perfect freedom from small-pox was secured by vaccination; but there were one or two Members of that House even now, or until recently, who were vaccinated by Jenner, and who afterwards had small-pox. That was now explained away by saying that it must be renewed; that it did not take effect; or by one of the many suggestions that men were driven to when found out in any scientific error. Vaccination had been thoroughly carried out in London; yet, every now and then, there was a serious epidemic. If the statistics were examined, it would be found that a pretence was made that every man who died from small-pox was un-vaccinated. That was a most monstrous statement, and contrary to what was known to be the fact. People were vaccinated over and over again, and it was clear that vaccination was not so certain as it was once said to be. To return to the proposition with which he had started, why should a father be prosecuted because he thought that what his children were made to undergo poisoned their whole blood and system, and might import into them one of the most loathsome of diseases? Supposing they succeeded in obtaining what they called pure lymph, even then it was really no protection against disease, for, although the lymph might have been taken from a healthy child, it might have been previously derived from a diseased subject. He asked the Government not to import into Ireland by means of this Bill these compulsory provisions. In doing so, the Government would be acting in accordance with the views of the Select Committee, to the effect that no man should be prosecuted more than twice for such an offence as this. By prosecuting for non-vaccination, he believed that people were made less likely to have their children vaccinated than if they were not under compulsion. He moved that the Bill be read a second time that day six months.

MR. P. A. TAYLOR

seconded the Amendment.

Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."—(Mr. Hopwood.)

Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part part of the Question."

MR. MELDON

thought that, from the speech of the hon. and learned Member, it might be supposed that compulsory vaccination and accumulative penalties were provided for in this measure. The object of the Bill was only to facilitate vaccination in Ireland, and for nothing else. At the outset of his observations he would call attention to the fact that, by the exercise of the existing Vaccination Acts, surgeons had been unable properly to carry out vaccination. The only thing complained of was the question of innoculation. In some parts of the country people were satisfied with innoculation as a preventative against the small-pox, and had to be instructed as to the necessity of vaccination. As to vaccination being objected to in Ireland, there was no ground for that statement. The utmost efforts of the Anti-Vaccination League had not been able to raise any public opinion in that country. The arguments of the hon. and learned Member were not, in his opinion, applicable to the point before the House—namely, whether the Acts for England should be applied to Ireland in those respects in which, at present, they had no operation? As regarded compulsory vaccination, it was the law in England, as well as in Ireland. But the difficulty had arisen in practice in Ireland that surgeons could not get proper lymph for the purpose of vaccination. When children had been taken by their parents to be vaccinated, there was a feeling that there was no necessity for bringing them back again for the doctor to see whether the operation had been successful. That was the second point the Bill was intended to meet. It provided that the doctor should be at liberty to take lymph from the arms of a child, and that the child should be brought back to obtain the proper certificate of vaccination. Those were the two broad provisions of the Bill. There was a third provision, which was with respect to the payment of doctors for vaccination. The House would probably be astonished to learn that the present fee for successful vaccination in Ireland was 1s., and sometimes a doctor had to go seven or eight miles to perform the operation he had to make, and he had to write a certificate and three or four entries, and to call three or four times to see the child. For 1s. to be the remuneration for that trouble was absurd; and it was the proposal of the Bill to make the fee the same as in England, where it was 2s. 6d. He might say that the Irish Representatives, generally, were in favour of the Bill, and the popular feeling in Ireland was also decidedly in favour of vaccination. He did not think that the Anti-Vaccination League would be able to find one single person to come forward to prove the statements they had made, or to say that there was any opposition to vaccination in Ireland.

MR. ARCHDALE

thought the Bill was one which ought to meet with the approval of the House; for, as he understood the hon. and learned Member for Kildare (Mr. Meldon), its principal provision was to give proper remuneration to medical men for public vaccination.

MR. MITCHELL HENRY

supported the second reading of the Bill chiefly upon the ground that there was no prejudice in Ireland against it. If Irish people took a view against vaccination, it would b e impossible, in the circumstances, to deal with small-pox throughout the Kingdom; and he therefore thought there was reason for congratulation that in Ireland there was no prejudice against it. During the small-pox epidemic which had recently occurred in Ireland, and which had resulted principally from the want of proper lymph in the Western portion of Ireland, one of the most neglected parts of Her Majesty's Dominions, people flocked from all parts to be vaccinated, and showed an enthusiasm in favour of vaccination to an extraordinary degree. [A laugh.] Hon. Members might smile; but if an epidemic of small-pox were to occur in this Metropolis, his hon. Friends would find it no laughing matter. He repeated, that the epidemic in the West of Ireland was stamped out entirely from the enthusiasm of the people in favour of vaccination.

MR. P. A. TAYLOR

I am very sorry, Sir, to be obliged to trouble the House with any remarks at this late hour of the evening; but I must remind the House that it is not my fault that I have to do so, but rather the fault of the Government in bringing on a Bill of this importance at the present hour. I will not, however, detain the House for more than a few moments. There appears to me to be a little confusion in the minds of hon. Members on this subject, for they are mixing up in this debate the question of the excellence of vaccination with the question of the desirability of making vaccination compulsory, which is an entirely different matter. For my part, I have no opinion to express at the present moment as to the excellence of vaccination, and the House would not care to listen to me if I ventured to express any opinion on that subject at the present time. I will only, therefore, say that I was a Member of the Committee of 1871 which considered the subject of vaccination. Since that time my attention has been directed to the subject, in consequence of what I believe to be the injustice and impropriety of compulsory vaccination; and from the statistics and other information which I have since that time been able to obtain, my opinion has been so far modified with regard to vaccination that I could not now put my name to the Report of the Committee, which at the time was unanimously agreed to. The objection I have is to compulsory vaccination. My hon. Friends round me, and my hon. Friend the Member for the County of Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry), boast of the enthusiastic adherence of the Irish people to vaccination. The obvious answer to that boast seems to me to be that if they so willingly accept it there is no need for pressing upon them this terrible compulsion—for terrible it is to those who object to it. In my opinion, every element which could justify the compulsory enforcement of vaccination, and could justify the State in standing between parents and the health of their children, is wanting in the present condition of the science and the statistics of vaccination. At one time and another there has been a good deal of opinion expressed in this House as to the views of the Anti-Vaccination Party, and much expression of disgust at their views, and repudiation of their conduct, in opposing the vaccination of their children. They had been talked of as prejudiced fools, as traders in disease, and as mere obstinate, wrong-headed persons standing between the self-evident good and advantage of their children, and the benevolence of the State. Perhaps I may be allowed to say that that seems to me to be an altogether wrong way of putting it. We cannot express the general opinion on the question of vaccination without taking into consideration what is undoubtedly the fact—that there does exist in the country a great amount of honest opposition to the principle of vaccination. I have seen dozens and scores of persons who tell me that they honestly believe that their children had died from vaccination, and who had told me all that happened with every circumstance and detail. They have told me how they took perfectly healthy children to be vaccinated, how an incision was made in the arm, how in the course of a few days a sore appeared there, how it spread on the arm, and from thence all over the body, and how, finally, the children died in agony. Now, they are wrong in their opinions, if you please; but they would be utterly heartless and unfeeling if, holding the opinion that vaccination is dangerous, they were to suffer their children to undergo vaccination. I maintain that all the elements justifying compulsion on the part of the State are wanting in this instance of vaccination. In the first place, there is not that certainty in the results which was boasted of by Jenner, and believed in as the fact at that time. During his life-time vaccination was believed to be an absolute preventive of small-pox. It was said that children who had been vaccinated were subsequently innoculated, or attempted to be innoculated, with small-pox, and that the attempt entirely failed, thus proving the excellence of vaccination. But if that was true then, it is most clearly not true now, for whenever there is an epidemic of small-pox scores and hundreds of children die of smallpox, and are acknowledged to have died of small-pox, who had previously been vaccinated. It must be remembered also that the figures put before us by the Government are utterly unreliable; unreliable partly because it is acknowledged by medical men to be impossible when children have died of small-pox to tell afterwards whether they have been vaccinated or not, and unreliable also because it is a principle with medical men not to return children who have died from the effects of vaccination as having so died. It has been stated by medical men that they do not like to cast a slur upon the system; and, therefore, they do not return deaths by vaccination, even where they do occur. There was a case at Leeds the other day, where the child died from vaccination, and the surgeon inserted that as the cause of death in his certificate. But the coroner, who was also a medical man, was one of those who do not like to cast a slur upon the system, and opposed that course. He said vaccination was not a death known to the law, and accordingly the child was returned as having died from another cause. In fact, the poor child had committed a legal offence in venturing to die under such circumstances. Then, again, since vaccination has been made absolutely compulsory in this country, deaths of small-pox have actually increased. Actually, since the year 1853, or whatever the year was that vaccination was made compulsory, there had been an increase in the percentage of deaths Then there is Germany, the best vaccinated country in the world. There the deaths from small-pox in the last epidemic were something frightful. All these are ample evidences to show that there is ground for the presumption and for the doubt whether it is wise to vaccinate their children. Far more than this, it is no longer held that it is absolutely safe to vaccinate children, as was stated to us when the Committee sat in 1871. During the first part of the time that the Committee sat the doctors who were called before us declared it to be impossible that syphilis and other diseases could be communicated by innoculation; while it was actually proved to demonstration, before we finished our sittings, that 13 cases of syphilis had arisen from one case of vaccination alone. Indeed, that fact is now notorious all over Europe. Not so very long ago, that famous physician, Dr. Ricord, declared that if it could be shown in any one case that syphilis was the result of vaccination, vaccination must cease to be practised, because it would be perfectly impossible to make sure that the child from whom the lymph was taken was safe. I do not think it is going too far to say that where there is risk on the one hand, and this chance of syphilis and other horrible diseases on the other, that it is abominable tyranny for the State to step in, to stand between the parent and the child, and to say that the child shall incur the risk of syphilis rather than incur the risk of catching small-pox. Then, at the very least, the State is in this dilemma. Either vaccination is a certain prophylatic, and then you do not need compulsion, because those only run a risk who neglect the operation; or it is not at all certain, and then you have no right to enforce it on parents. But the real fact is, you do not enforce it in the only real direct way. You do not dare to enforce it. The only thorough way to enforce this compulsion is for the State to take the child out of its mother's arms and vaccinate it. You do not dare to do that; and you further only oppress the very poor, who have no power to resist your tyranny. People in the middle classes who object to compulsory vaccination are not summoned, and there are actually hon. Members in this House who avoid the law, who do not have their children vaccinated, and yet are not punished. Therefore, the law ceases to become something enacted for the protection of society at large, and degenerates instead into merely a piece of class legislation. Finally, if vaccination were the finest and safest thing in the world, your attempt to spread it by compulsion is an enormously mistaken policy; because you are setting against you numbers of people whose views may be only based on prejudice, but whose prejudices are intensified at the distinctions which you most unjustly make.

MAJOR NOLAN

said, he would support the Bill most heartily, for when an outbreak of small-pox occurred in Ireland it was found that it was much more severe among those who had not been vaccinated than among those who had. The feeling in Ireland was, without exception, in favour of vaccination, and the people even came by hundreds and thousands to be re-vaccinated.

Question put, and agreed to.

Main Question put, and agreed to.

Bill read a second time, and committed for Monday 21st April.

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