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William J. Collins, M.D., B.S., B.Sc. (Lond) quotes
Smallpox vaccine critics Dr Collins MD (1883)

"Dr. Charles Creighton, Alfred Russel Wallace, William White, Prof. Edgar Crookshank, William Tebb, Dr. Scott Tebb, Dr. William J. Collins and his father, of the same name, who had been a public vaccinator for 20 years and had renounced the practice, were all head-and-shoulders above their opponents, both in intellect and in integrity. They may therefore never be mentioned on the radio, nor may their history."---Lionel Dole

"I have no faith in vaccination; nay, I look upon it with the greatest possible disgust, and firmly believe that it is often the medium of conveying many filthy and loathsome diseases from one child to another, and no protection whatever against small pox. Indeed, I consider we are now living in the JENNERIAN epoch for the slaughter of innocents, and the unthinking portion of the adult population."---W. J. COLLINS, M.D., B.S., B.Sc. (Lond.) M.R.C.S (Letter to Vaccination Inquirer)

"I am myself perfectly convinced that all zymotic diseases arise from and are intensified by insanitary conditions and surroundings; that the abolition of the latter is the only radical method of stamping out this class of disease, that to put out one by a special prophylactic, while the conditions which produce all abound, is as illogical as it is impracticable; and that further, when that prophylactic is fraught with risk which, though it may be small, is yet not certainly avoid able, compulsory vaccination becomes cruel as well as ineffectual."---W. J. COLLINS, M.D., B.S., B.Sc. (Lond.) M.R.C.S (Letter to Vaccination Inquirer)

"LAST June, at the Public Vaccination Station at Norwich, nine children were vaccinated by the Public Vaccinator, and in less than three weeks four of them were dead, and the remaining five were labouring under more or less severe constitutional disease."------William J. Collins, M.D., B.S., B.Sc. (Lond) (1883 A Review of the Norwich Vaccination Inquiry)

"It might be suggested that superadded disease had been conveyed from the vaccinifers to those vaccinated, but here we are at once met by the fact that no less than six different vaccinifers were employed to furnish lymph for the nine vaccinated, and that at least four of the vaccinifers, prior and subsequently to vaccination, had been entirely free from disease of any kind, and the Inspectors added, "no blame is cast upon the vaccinator in respect of the selection of any of the vaccinifers.""------William J. Collins, M.D., B.S., B.Sc. (Lond) (1883 A Review of the Norwich Vaccination Inquiry)

"Notwithstanding the disavowal of the inspectors respecting the ivory points, and their exoneration of Dr. Guy, and notwithstanding the fact that there was not one tittle of evidence given to indicate the ivory points as the fons et origo mali, Dr. Buchanan undertakes the thankless task of whitewashing vaccination at Dr. Guy's expense, and undertakes to clear up the whole mystery on the assumption that foul ivory points were used............Now, with regard to the ivory points, Dr. Guy deposed : "I do not use the same points more than once on same day; when a point is once used I put it into a saucer; after use I put a point into water and rub it on a towel, then rub it on emery paper, then put it into water and rub it on a towel again, and before using it again, I put it into water and wipe it on a towel.""------William J. Collins, M.D., B.S., B.Sc. (Lond) (1883 A Review of the Norwich Vaccination Inquiry)

The accompanying table gives the deaths thus registered since 1859, and when it is borne in mind that all such cases are not returned as such, in order, according to Mr. May, " to save vaccination from reproach;" that not one of the cases at Gainsborough, and only one of the cases at Norwich were certified thus, it will be seen that these figures only represent a portion of the whole truth."------William J. Collins, M.D., B.S., B.Sc. (Lond) (1883 A Review of the Norwich Vaccination Inquiry)

"So long ago as 1806, the College of Surgeons published 24 cases of inflammation of the arm following vaccination, whereof three proved fatal. In 1844 the Dublin Journal of Medical Science published a series of cases of erysipelas after vaccination. In 1849-50, Dr. J. Jones, of Boston, reported that erysipelas frequently followed vaccination. In 1871 a great number of cases occurred in London. In 1876, a series of eighteen cases, of which eight proved fatal, were disclosed at Gainsborough, and were the subject of a Local Government Board inquiry by Dr. Netten Radcliffe. In 1878, Dr. Martin, of Boston, wrote of erysipelas, "that miserable complication, the pest of vaccinators." Enough has been said to show that erysipelas does not unfrequently follow vaccination, in different places and countries, and under divers conditions; that there is some connection between the two factors apart from surroundings and accident, and that the greatest and most remarkable peculiarity of all, in the Norwich cases, is, that they should have obtained such wide recognition and publicity."------William J. Collins, M.D., B.S., B.Sc. (Lond) (1883 A Review of the Norwich Vaccination Inquiry)

"I may quote from the "Public Health Reports," New Series, No. 3, wherein it is stated that "Septic material containing micrococci, when applied to a wound, produces intense local inflammation, which rapidly affects the surrounding skin; the spreading disease thus produced corresponds in all its phenomena with erysipelas." If for "septic material containing micrococci" we substitute the legitimately interchangeable term "vaccine lymph," it would be difficult even for Dr. Buchanan to escape from the conclusion that the erysipelatous poison is inherent in the vaccine lymph. And here, strange enough we have the illustrious corroboration of Dr. Jenner's own testimony, for if there was anything Jenner insisted upon it was this—that erysipelas is a necessary accompaniment of true cow-pox—in fact, the seal of authenticity. Indeed, when hard pressed for pure lymph, he confesses he resorted with the utmost indifference to an "extensive inflammation of an erysipelatous character in the upper part of the thigh of a sucking-colt" for a supply; and he added, that the lymph thus obtained was the true, and not the spurious, cowpox, was beyond contention."------William J. Collins, M.D., B.S., B.Sc. (Lond) (1883 A Review of the Norwich Vaccination Inquiry)

"Dr. Guy deposed:—"In my opinion, the purity of lymph can only be tested by results. I agree with Mr. Lyddon that, assuming a healthy child to be carefully vaccinated with pure lymph, erysipelas might follow. Unfortunately, I can recall cases in my practice." So that, as far as the evidence went, it was established that pure lymph, taken from a healthy child, and inoculated upon another perfectly healthy child, might determine even fatal erysipelas; that purity of lymph is only known by its results; that the only test is a pathological one ; and that impure lymph is but too often an invention employed to explain away disasters."------William J. Collins, M.D., B.S., B.Sc. (Lond) (1883 A Review of the Norwich Vaccination Inquiry)

"In assuming that erysipelas is inherent in every septic fluid like vaccine lymph, and regarding the whole system of arm-to-arm vaccination as a huge Pasteurian method of cultivating and attenuating diseases at will, we need not be surprised that the erysipelatous blush or areola which normally accompanies true cow-pox vesicles, should in some cases extend indefinitely and even extensively, and occasionally lead to a fatal issue."------William J. Collins, M.D., B.S., B.Sc. (Lond) (1883 A Review of the Norwich Vaccination Inquiry)

"In conclusion, I may summarise the theory I put forward thus : That vaccine lymph is a septic fluid containing micrococci, and, as such, is capable, per se, of causing erysipelas by inoculation, and that, in fact, the normal vaccine areola is a local and mild erysipelas; that under certain conditions, possibly the result of cultivation from arm to arm, and possibly by the lymph being richer than usual in the number of septic particles, the erysipelas becomes diffuse, and perhaps fatal, that the vaccine pustules may, like any other putrid sore, originate erysipelas de novo; that in vaccination we use an animal poison whose mode of action is unknown to us, and whose effects we cannot measure; that the purity of the lymph can only be ascertained by its results; and that no amount of care or caution can obviate a repetition of other disasters like that which has recently shocked us at Norwich. Such being the case, it is at once the grossest tyranny to continue the compulsory enforcement of vaccination, and the supremest folly to think, with Dr. Buchanan, that the only lesson to be learnt from the Norwich inquiry is this—" Never use an ivory point a second time!""------William J. Collins, M.D., B.S., B.Sc. (Lond) (1883 A Review of the Norwich Vaccination Inquiry)

"First, that the danger of transmitting syphilis by vaccination is real and important, and cases of the kind not very uncommon; second, that inasmuch as a syphilitic vaccinifer may betray no sign of the disease, and that admixture of blood is not essential to infection, we as yet know of no safeguard against arm-to-arm infection; third, that it is possible for wholesale syphilisation by vaccination to go on "without even exciting a vaccinator's suspicions "—a fact which somewhat detracts from the value of the assurance of public vaccinators, who have vaccinated thousands and never seen a bad result, and who, as a rule, lose sight of their patients after the eighth day. ...............Mr. Hutchinson, be it understood, is a "firm advocate of compulsory vaccination," so that his evidence is the more unassailable ; yet he opines :—"there can be no doubt that the danger of transmitting syphilis is a real and very important one." His first series of cases he summarises thus:—"Twelve persons, mostly young adults, vaccinated from a healthy-looking child. Satisfactory progress of the vaccination in all. Indurated chancres on the arms of ten of the vaccinated in the eighth week. Treatment by mercury in all. Rapid disappearance of the primary sores; constitutional symptoms in four of the patients five months afterwards, the vaccinifer showing condylomata at the age of six months." These cases, Mr. Hutchinson states, were brought to the notice of the medical officers of the Privy Council, and Dr. Seaton requested that he should investigate them. I call attention to this to disprove a widely current inaccuracy, an example of which I extract from Mr. Ernest Hart's "Truth," to the effect that "No case of syphilis caused by vaccination has ever been discovered by the Medical Department of the State during the twenty years that it has supervised the vaccination of the kingdom."(The Truth about Vaccination," by Ernest Hart. 1880.)---William J. Collins, M.D., B.S., B.Sc. (1883, Sir Lyon Playfair's Logic)

"The table shows these deaths have increased nearly eightfold in thirty years, and, when it is borne in mind that all such cases are not returned as such, in order, according to Mr. May, M.K.O.S., "to save vaccination from reproach," that not one of the cases at Gainsborough and only one of the cases at Norwich were certified thus, it will be seen that these figures only represent a portion of the whole truth. In my review of the Norwich inquiry I have shown, contrary to the opinion of Sir Lyon Playfair, and in strict accord with the views of the immortal author of vaccination, that a very close relation indeed does subsist between vaccination and erysipelas— in fact, that vaccine lymph is a septic fluid containing micrococci, and, as such, is capable, per se, of causing erysipelas by inoculation, and that the normal vaccine areola is simply a local and mild erysipelas."---William J. Collins, M.D., B.S., B.Sc. (1883, Sir Lyon Playfair's Logic)

"Thus, in the Cologne epidemic of 1870, 173 vaccinated persons were attacked before the first unvaccinated one (Dr. de Pietra Santa—Lettre a Messieurs de la Chambre des Deputes, Feb. 16, 1881). In Liegnitz, in 1871, the first unvaccinated to suffer was 225th on the list; (Quoted from petition to the Reichstag in A. C. V. Eeporter, June 1st, 1881).and in Bonn, in 1870, the first unvaccinated victim was the forty-second attacked."---William J. Collins, M.D., B.S., B.Sc. (1883, Sir Lyon Playfair's Logic)

"So that it would seem to be a just conclusion from the foregoing that vaccination is inoperative in the absence of sanitation and superfluous in its presence; that if you could put out one zymotic disease by vaccination, people would die at the same rate as before, unless you abolish all by universal sanitation."---William J. Collins, M.D., B.S., B.Sc. (1883, Sir Lyon Playfair's Logic)

"Again, in 30 per cent. of small-pox deaths, (Buchanan: " Small-pox in London in 1881." Report to the Local Government Board) there is no information respecting vaccination, and how are we to know whether the desire " to save vaccination from reproach" was stronger than the hesitation to witness to transgression of the Vaccination Acts."---William J. Collins, M.D., B.S., B.Sc. (1883, Sir Lyon Playfair's Logic)

"Now, in the epidemic of 1871, 91.5 per cent. of the cases admitted to the Highgate Hospital were vaccinated, and at the same place in 1881, of 491 cases only twenty-one were not vaccinated, and this at a time when certainly not more than 90 per cent. of Londoners were "protected;" and, indeed, in an outbreak at Bromley, comprising forty-three cases, every one of the victims had been vaccinated and three re-vaccinated, (Lancet, April 27,1881.) so that it would seem, as regards the relative incidence of small-pox, vaccination has very little effect. If I wished to improve the occasion, after Sir Lyon Playfair's example, I might quote Dr. Browning, who gives particulars of 469 cases of post-vaccinal small-pox, of whom ninety-nine died, or 21.108 per cent. of whom he says, "many of these sufferers showed good vaccine marks of the kind that would be deemed worthy of an extra grant from the Government Inspector, and yet they took small-pox."---William J. Collins, M.D., B.S., B.Sc. (1883, Sir Lyon Playfair's Logic)

"The 23,469 deaths from small-pox in the French army, though cited in St-Petersburg and Berlin, twice published in the British Medical Journal, approved by Dr. Carpenter, proclaimed by Sir Lyon Playfair, and declared by Sir Charles Dilke to be simply "crushing," have been proved, nevertheless, to be a pure fabrication, there being no statistical data of the Franco-German War worthy of the name. The one certain fact about the matter seems to be that 263 well re-vaccinated German soldiers died of small-pox."---William J. Collins, M.D., B.S., B.Sc. (1883, Sir Lyon Playfair's Logic)

"Diseases are specific, said Sir Lyon, and vaccination can convey no disease but itself—theoretically true, practically an absurdity. If it were possible to filter off the vaccine germs from vaccine lymph and use these alone, it might be possible to avoid all other taint; but vaccine virus, what is it? It is the serum of blood, containing also blood-cells in small numbers along with the vaccinal germs, and the constituents derived from the blood may naturally carry with them any poison contained in the blood. Vaccine lymph can, therefore, convey any disease whose cause can reside in the blood, and therefore in the lymph of a vaccine vesicle."---William J. Collins, M.D., B.S., B.Sc. (1883, Sir Lyon Playfair's Logic)

"Respecting the oft-told tale of diminished pock-marked faces, it is curious and instructive to quote the following extracts, the one from the National Vaccine Establishment's Report, for 1825; the other from the Lancet, June 29, 1872. The former asks : "What argument more powerful can be urged in favour of vaccination than the daily remark which the least observant must make, that in our churches, our theatres, and in every large assemblage of the people to see a young person bearing the marks of small-pox is now of extremely rare occurrence?"
"That is to say, twenty-five years before vaccination was made compulsory, pock-marked faces were all but banished; whereas, nineteen years after the introduction of compulsion, the Lancet laments "the growing frequency with which we meet persons in the street disfigured for life with the pitting of small-pox. Young men, and still worse, young women, are to be seen daily whose comeliness is quite compromised by this dreadful disease." Both statements are worthless as evidence to one who has acquainted himself with statistics. It is true pock-marked faces are rarer than they used to be, because small-pox is rarer and better treated than it used to be; but so, also, is fever, and the decline of fever is simply not so markedly observed because people do not carry "the stamped receipt" of fever about them on their persons. It is true, and no one can deny it, that small-pox in London declined at the end of the last century and the beginning of this, in a remarkable way, and in nearly the same ratio as fever; but it is equally true that for the last thirty years (under compulsory vaccination) the number of deaths by small-pox in London has increased, and it is not surprising that pock-marked faces have multiplied accordingly."---William J. Collins, M.D., B.S., B.Sc. (1883, Sir Lyon Playfair's Logic)

"No fact, no circumstance, no experience supports the conclusion that were vaccination able to abolish small-pox, the death-rate would be lowered in the least, so long as insanitary conditions prevail. And, in fine, if sanitation prevailed, the very raison d'etre for vaccination, to say nothing of compulsion, would be everlastingly destroyed."---William J. Collins, M.D., B.S., B.Sc. (1883, Sir Lyon Playfair's Logic)