The Germ Paradigm Trap (Part II)

The Germ Paradigm Trap (Part I)

What About Smallpox?

The legend of the first vaccine goes something like this… It was rumored among milkmaids that infection with cowpox could protect one from smallpox. In 1796, believing these stories, Edward Jenner subjected an eight-year-old boy named James Phipps to an experiment. He took pus that he thought to be cowpox from lesions on the hands of dairymaid Sarah Nelmes and scratched it onto James.

The child was later deliberately exposed to smallpox to test the protective property of the cowpox inoculation. When the boy did not contract clinical smallpox, Jenner assumed that the cowpox vaccination was successful and would provide lifelong protection against smallpox. This procedure was called cowpoxing and later called vaccination.

Vacca is the Latin word for cow, and that’s where we get the term vaccination. In 1798 Jenner published a paper claiming lifelong immunity to smallpox and promoting his technique. Humanity lived happily ever after having at last conquered smallpox.

Is that the whole story? Or is there more to the tale that has been left out? Having happened over a long period of over 200 years, it’s a long, complex history. But there is some information that you might not know.

Edward Jenner did his famous experiment using a cow. Actually, he took pus from a lady’s hand that was infected from milking cows and scratched it onto a boy.

Edward Jenner actually believed that genuine cowpox disease originated from the running sores of sick horse’s heels. It was a condition called the grease, also known as horse-pox, and he used the pus from sores of these horses to supply vaccinators. Jenner also thought that smallpox, swine-pox, cow-pox, and horse-pox were merely varieties of the same disease. People also used goats to acquire goat-pox as a source of vaccine material.

Also, the blankets from people who died from smallpox were hung around cows’ heads to make vaccine material. In addition, some cows were directly inoculated with smallpox to make smallpox-cow vaccine material. The ulcerated udder of a cow was then scraped to get the vaccine material.

Another method was placing vaccination scabs from a person into a jar and filling it with water to make a paste. The resultant mixture was used to vaccinate others.

Once a person was vaccinated with some type of vaccine (made from the puss of a sore on a cow, horse, goat, pig, or smallpox from a corpse scratched onto a cow), that person was then used to vaccinate the next person in a method called arm-to-arm vaccination and then the next and the next. Millions of vaccinations were made with no one really knowing what they were really using. Arms or inner thighs were scratched until bloodied, and then from that, the next person was vaccinated.

Although there were many ideas about how to make these concoctions to scratch onto people, they all fell under the brand name of “vaccine,” and many in the medical profession quickly adopted Jenner’s idea of vaccination.

In 1799, shortly after Jenner published his paper on using cowpox to get lifelong protection from smallpox, Dr. Drake conducted a vaccination experiment on 3 children with a vaccine obtained directly from Edward Jenner. Unfortunately, when challenged with smallpox inoculation, all 3 vaccinated children developed smallpox. The vaccine had failed.

In three of them, a lad aged seventeen and two of the Colborne children (one four years, the other fifteen months), the cowpox vesicles came to early maturity and were scabbed under the usual time. The lad was inoculated with small-pox on the 20th December, being the eighth day from his vaccination, and the two children on the 21st, being again the eighth day. They all developed smallpox…¹       

As the years marched on, there were many reports of vaccination failure. People were getting smallpox after vaccination despite the original claim of protection.

The Medical Observer for 1810 contains particulars of 535 cases of small-pox after vaccination, 97 fatal cases, 150 cases of vaccine injuries…²

An article in the 1817 London Medical Repository Monthly Journal and Review showed yet again that a great many people who had undergone vaccination were still suffering from smallpox.

However painful, yet it is a duty we owe to the public and the profession, to apprize them, that the number of all ranks suffering under Small Pox, who have previously under-gone vaccination by the most skilful practitioners, is at present alarmingly great. This subject is so serious, and so deeply involves the dearest interests of humanity, as well as those of the medical character, that we shall not fail in directing our utmost attention to it.³

In 1818 Thomas Brown, a surgeon with 30 years of experience in Musselburgh, Scotland, described how no one in the medical profession “could outstrip me in zeal for promoting vaccine practice.” But after vaccinating 1,200 people and discovering that many still contracted and even died from smallpox, his conscience could no longer support vaccination.

The accounts from all quarters of the world, wherever vaccination has been introduced... the cases of failures are now increased to an alarming proportion…⁴

In 1829 William Cobbett, a farmer, journalist, and English pamphleteer, wrote about the failure of vaccination to protect people from smallpox.

…in hundreds of instances, persons cow-poxed by JENNER HIMSELF [William Cobbett’s capital emphasis], have taken the real small-pox afterwards, and have either died from the disorder, or narrowly escaped with their lives!⁵

And it was not only that there were often vaccine failures that didn’t stop the person from getting smallpox and even dying, but the vaccination itself could cause significant harm and even resulted in death. For example, Dr. Hopkins made the following report in 1882.

Our town authorities have employed a physician to vaccinate all persons who present themselves for the purpose… The result has been fearful. Nearly every one vaccinated has suffered from Erythema or Erysipelas [an acute, serious skin disease], the arm swollen from shoulder to wrist, and the point of puncture [where the person was vaccinated] presenting the appearance of a sloughing ulcer [which means a separation of dead from living tissue], discharging freely sanious pus [meaning blood and pus]. Many of the suffers have been confined to bed, with high fever, from five to ten days, requiring the constant application of poultices to the arm, and free use of morphia [morphine] for the relief of pain. Those who have tried it tell me they would much prefer to have smallpox.⁶

Injuries and deaths from vaccination continued into the 1900s. For example, a 1968 article from the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine showed that since the last smallpox death in 1948, there were 200 to 300 deaths from smallpox vaccination.⁷

Jenner’s claim for lifelong protection was quickly scrapped with calls now for revaccination. There were calls for revaccination from every 10 years to as little as every year.

In 1840, as doctors and citizens realized that vaccination was not what it was promised to be, vaccine refusals increased. In 1855 Massachusetts created a set of comprehensive vaccination laws.⁸ Yet, despite these strict laws where virtually everyone needed to be vaccinated, more people died (85% more) in the 20 years after those strict laws than did 20 years before.

The latest epidemic that of 1872-1873, having proved fatal to 1040 persons, was the most severe that has been experienced in Boston since the introduction of vaccination.⁹

By the end of 1868, more than 95 percent of the inhabitants of Chicago had been vaccinated. After the Great Fire of 1871 that leveled the city, vaccination was made a condition of receiving relief supplies. Despite the passing of strict vaccination laws, Chicago was hit with a devastating smallpox epidemic in 1872. The idea of vaccinating most of the population did not protect the people from the scourge of smallpox.

But despite these measures, the death rate rose ominously in the aftermath of the fire. Over two thousand persons contracted smallpox in 1872, and more than a fourth of these died. The fatality among children under five was the highest ever recorded.¹⁰

This 1900 medical article showed the epic failure of vaccination in France, Germany, and England. Imagine that a reported 1,000,000 vaccinated people died from smallpox in Germany over the span of 15 years.

Every recruit that enters the French army is vaccinated. During the Franco-Prussian war there were 23,469 cases of small-pox in that army.

The London Lancet of July 15, 1871, said: Of 9,392 small-pox patients in London hospitals, 6,854 had been vaccinated. 17 ½% of those attacked died.

In the whole country more than 122,000 vaccinated persons have suffered from small-pox... Official returns from Germany show that between 1870 and 1885, 1,000,000 vaccinated persons died from small-pox.¹¹

In England, governments passed various laws to force people to be vaccinated. Vaccination was made compulsory in England in 1853, with stricter laws passed in 1867. Despite these strict laws and high vaccination rates, 1872 was devastating for the highly vaccinated population. So after 74 years (3/4 of a century) of vaccination, there was a massive amount of smallpox deaths.

Despite all these failures, most of the medical profession was steadfast in its support of vaccination. Through a series of legal acts over the years, the British government had made refusing smallpox vaccination a crime punishable by fines or imprisonment. The plan was to keep vaccinating and revaccinating, seemingly no matter what.

It was March 23, 1885, and after a long, harsh winter, the manufacturing town of Leicester, England, enjoyed one of the first beautiful spring days. Thousands from the vicinity and surrounding towns gathered to protest what they felt were unjust laws forced upon them by the British government.

The 1871-1872 smallpox epidemic, where most were vaccinated, shook many people’s belief in the protective powers of vaccination to its core. They had grown weary of fines, imprisonments, vaccine failures, injuries, and deaths. Organizers of the event estimated the number in attendance to have been between 80,000 and 100,000.

...as the years continued more parents heard of, saw, or experienced a growing list of complications attributed to vaccination. The 1871-72 smallpox epidemic gave a vivid example to the townspeople, in that although they had complied with the law some 3,000 cases occurred and of these 358 died, some of them vaccinated according to the law.¹²

The large two-mile-long procession marched around the town for about two hours, receiving enthusiastic cheering at various points along the route. It was a festive atmosphere with music playing. Hundreds of flags and banners were on display.

The protestor’s actions would soon have the effect they had hoped for. In 1885, Leicester’s government, which had pushed for vaccination through the use of fines and jail time, was replaced with a new government that was opposed to compulsory vaccination. By 1887 the vaccination coverage rates had dropped to 10 percent.

Those who strongly endorsed vaccination believed that the immunity enjoyed by the town of Leicester was temporary and that sooner or later, the town would suffer a large smallpox epidemic. They were convinced that a great tragedy was inevitable and tremendous suffering for the unfortunates who followed the leaders into what they felt was a misguided adventure. They thought that the “gigantic experiment” would result in a terrible “massacre,”, especially in the “unprotected” children.

Sir Duminie Corrigan, M.D. when acting as one of the committee in 1871, on the Vaccination Act, said: “An unvaccinated child is like a bag of gunpowder which might blow up the whole school, and ought not, therefore to be admitted to a school unless he is vaccinated.”¹³

Yet despite these pronouncements of doom due to falling vaccination levels, the predicted smallpox epidemics never materialized, as this chart shows. Lower vaccination levels did not result in more and larger smallpox epidemics.

The year 1948 brought an end to compulsory vaccination in England. By that point, the experiment in Leicester, which had been going on for more than 60 years, proved to be a great success. In fact, vaccination for smallpox had fallen across all of England without resurging smallpox epidemics.

...in Leicester during the 62 years since infant vaccination was abandoned there have been only 53 deaths from small-pox, and in the past 40 years only two deaths. Moreover, the experience in Leicester is confirmed, and strongly confirmed, by that of the whole country. Vaccination has been steadily declining ever since the “conscience clause” was introduced, until now nearly two-thirds of the children born are not vaccinated. Yet smallpox mortality has also declined until now quite negligible. In the fourteen years 1933-1946 there were only 28 deaths in a population of some 40 million, and among those 28 there was not a single death of an infant under 1 year of age.¹⁴

So what happened?

After the summer of 1897, the severe type of smallpox with its high death rate, with rare exception, had entirely disappeared from the United States. Smallpox turned from a disease that killed 1 in 5 of its victims to one that only killed anywhere from 1 in 50 and later to as low as 1 in 380. This disease could still kill, but having become so much milder, it was mistaken for various other pox infections or skin eruptions. It was even confused with chickenpox.

During 1896 a very mild type of smallpox began to prevail in the South and later gradually spread over the country. The mortality was very low and it [smallpox] was usually at first mistaken for chicken pox or some new disease called “Cuban itch,” “elephant itch,” “Spanish measles,” “Japanese measles,” “bumps,” “impetigo,” “Porto Rico scratches,” “Manila scab,” “Porto Rico itch,” “army itch,” “African itch,” “cedar itch,” “Manila itch,” “Bean itch,” “Dhobie itch,” “Filipino itch,” “nigger itch,” “Kangaroo itch,” “Hungarian itch,” “Italian itch,” “bold hives,” “eruptive grip,” “beanpox,” “waterpox,” or “swinepox.”¹⁵

This table from 1940 Public Health Reports shows that smallpox cases and deaths plummeted like all other infectious diseases of the time. Smallpox which once had killed 1 in 5 (which is a case fatality rate of 20), dropped starting in the 1800s until it was a small fraction of the original rate. The number of smallpox cases from the peak in 1902 to 1939 declined by 86.5% and deaths by 98.5%.

As the classic and deadly variety of smallpox declined, so did the vaccination rate. This, in turn, sounded alarms in the medical community. The fear was that the milder type of smallpox could at some point revert back to its original and more deadly form. However, no smallpox epidemic ever materialized despite declining vaccination rates.

It was not only smallpox that became less of a threat. Beginning in the late 1800s and into the 1900s, the mortality rate for all infectious diseases dropped. By the time the following report was written in 1946, smallpox had all but vanished from England and the Western world.

What has been the cause of the rise and fall of smallpox? Its decline in the later decades of the nineteenth century was at one time almost universally attributed to vaccination, but it is doubtful how true this is. Vaccination was never carried out with any degree of completeness, even among infants, and was maintained at a high level for a few decades only. There was therefore always a large proportion of the population unaffected by the vaccination laws. Revaccination affected only a fraction. At the present the population is largely entirely unvaccinated. Members of the public health service now flatter themselves that the cessation of such outbreaks as do occur is due to their efforts. But is this so?¹⁶

Ultimately, Leicester and most of the Western world’s plans that vastly improved overall health led to the decline of smallpox and all these diseases. It was the world’s great health revolution.

The Germ Paradigm Trap

It’s clear that so-called infectious disease mortality rates all massively declined well before vaccines. The decline in these diseases is also coincident with many modern innovations that radically changed the life of struggle and sickness.

Vastly improved nutrition, labor and child labor laws, electricity, iceboxes and later refrigeration, sewer systems, the flush toilet, clean water, abolishing tenements, regulating food handling, and many more positive changes radically transformed how we live. Measles, scarlet fever, typhoid, diphtheria, whooping cough, tuberculosis, and diarrhea (which was another huge source of death and misery) all simultaneously decreased and essentially disappeared because of those changes.

Yet here we are over 200 years after Edward Jenner performed his famous experiment, and we are still caught in the notion that germs equal disease. Do you still think that makes sense? Or does the often ignored terrain theory (or a healthy or sick body) that really causes a disease make more sense?

Dr. Charles Okell, a high-ranking expert in infectious diseases, noted in an article in 1939 in the medical journal the Lancet that large-scale immunization wouldn’t be possible without propaganda. Accidents and mistakes are suppressed and manipulated to cover them up because if they told the truth, it would be doubtful the public would submit to vaccination.

...the immunisation of the masses has been undertaken with almost a religious fervour. The enthusiast rarely stopped to wonder where it would all finish or whether the fulsome promises made to the public in the form of “propaganda” would ever be honoured. Without propaganda there can, of course, be no large-scale immunisation, but how perilous it is to mix up propaganda with scientific fact. If we baldly [in plain or basic language] told the whole truth it is doubtful whether the public would submit to immunization... Accidents and mistakes must inevitably happen and when they take place what might have been a highly instructive lesson is usually suppressed or distorted out of recognition. Those who have had to take detailed notice of the immunisation accidents of the past few years know that to get the truth of what really went wrong generally calls for the resources of something like the secret service.¹⁷

As we have seen through history, vaccine failures, injuries, and deaths have all been swept under the rug. The people who suffered and died because of a vaccine are erased from history and replaced with a fantasy of a country doctor making an incredible discovery and saving humanity. Bullying, pressure, fines, and imprisonment were also needed to ensure vaccine compliance.

Today, because most are still being caught in this germ paradigm trap, as noted by Dr. Okell in 1938, vaccination is being “undertaken with almost a religious fervor.”

As has happened through history, to push a vaccine, today many are still using name-calling, intimidation, ridicule, blocking education, and threatening people’s jobs to push forward their agenda. Orders and laws are put into place to make sure everyone complies with their belief system. Ironically adults often teach their children not to bully others, but then they do the exact opposite.

Like it always has been done, all things that improve human health that has appeared in the scientific literature that would help (losing weight, exercise, increased vitamin D levels, reducing stress, and more), as well as vaccine problems, are all swept under the rug. Enacting all these positive health actions would have also reduced heart disease, stroke, and cancer, yet the establishment is trapped into a single way of thinking.

There was a time when people thought the Earth was the center of the universe. Those that thought differently were considered heretics. Today, we are still stuck with a Germ center of our health universe model. How long will it take before we escape from this 1800s way of thinking?

1. Charles Creighton, Jenner and Vaccination, 1889, pp. 95–96.

2. “Vaccination by Act of Parliament,” Westminster Review, vol. 131, 1889, p. 101.

3. “Observations on Prevailing Diseases,” The London Medical Repository Monthly Journal and Review, vol. VIII, July–December 1817, p. 95.

4. Thomas Brown, Surgeon Musselburgh, “On the Present State of Vaccination,” The Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, vol. 15, 1819, p. 67.

5. William Cobbett, Advice to Young Men and (Incidentally) to Young Women, London, 1829, pp. 224–225.

6. The Value of Vaccination: A Non-partisan Review of Its History and Results, George William Winterburn, PhD, MD, 1886, p. 51.

7. The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, vol. 41, 1968, p. 10.

8. Susan Wade Peabody, “Historical Study of Legislation Regarding Public Health in the State of New York and Massachusetts,” The Journal of Infectious Dis-eases, suppl. no. 4, February 1909, pp. 50–51.

9. “Small-Pox and Revaccination,” Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, vol. CIV, no. 6, February 10, 1881, p. 137.

10. Thomas Neville Bonner, Medicine in Chicago 1850–1950: A Chapter in the Social and Scientific Development of a City, American History Research Center, Madison, Wisconsin, 1957, p. 182.

11. G. W. Harman, MD, “A Physician’s Argument Against the Efficacy of Virus Inoculation,” Medical Brief: A Monthly Journal of Scientific Medicine and Surgery, vol. 28, no. 1, 1900, p. 84.

12. Stuart M. F. Fraser, “Leicester and Smallpox: The Leicester Method,” Medical History, 1980, vol. 24, p. 330.

13. J. W. Hodge, MD, “How Small-Pox Was Banished from Leicester,” Twentieth Century Magazine, vol. III, no. 16, January 1911, p. 340.

14. C. Killick Millard, MD, DSc, “The End of Compulsory Vaccination,” British Medical Journal, December 18, 1948, p. 1074.

15. Charles V. Chapin, “Variation in Type of Infectious Disease as Shown by the History of Smallpox in the United States,” The Journal of Infectious Diseases, vol. 13, no. 2, September 1913, p. 173.

16. Journal of the Royal Sanitary Institute, vol. 66, 1946, p. 176.

17. Charles Cyril Okell, “From a Bacteriological Back-Number,” The Lancet, January 1, 1938, pp. 48–49.