Hobart, Tasmania
Jan. 26th 1898
Alfred R. Wallace Esqre. F.R.S.
Dear Sir,
My friend Mr. W. I. E. Wilton of Melbourne informs me that you are about to publish a new work on Vaccination.
Having studied this question with unbiassed[sic] mind for many years, both in England and the colonies, I have come to the conclusion that Vaccination is unsound in theory and pernicious in practice while its enforcement by law is not only a gross violation of the most sacred rights of the individual, but is also a national danger, to say nothing of the outrage upon the higher instincts of their nature perpetrated whenever men are compelled, under penalty, [2] to undergo what they are convinced is an evil and disgusting operation.
There is one point which I consider to deserve special attention and that is the present mania for vaccn with calf-lymph.
The evolution & differentiation of man from the brute has taken so many thousands of years to accomplish and has been advanced or retarded so often by what, separately considered, were slight & simple causes, that we have good reason to believe the re-introduction of any brutal element directly into the human body to be fraught with peril both to the individual and
to the race.
You have so often, and so clearly demonstrated the subtle & far-reaching effects of environment upon individuals, upon species, and upon races that I trust you will allow me to call your attention to the relation of Cancer, syphilis, & allied diseases to vaccination, especially to calf-lymph vaccination.
From a work of my own that I hope shortly to publish on the Vaccn question ("Vaccination, is it right?") I extract the enclosed passages, with which you [3] are at liberty to deal as you please.
You have doubtless read the very suggestive article in the Fortnightly Review (for Nov. by Mr G. Archdall Reid on the "Present Evolution of Man".1 Whatever may be your own opinion of Mr Reid’s article in its entirety I feel sure that you must agree with his remarks on p.p. 755-6 of that review in which he accounts for the fact that not only smallpox but other epidemic diseases must gradually lose their virulence in civilised communities in the course of several generations simply because of the greater vitality of those who survive their attacks and the transmission by them to their offspring of similar powers of resistance to such diseases. Hence the reduced mortality in smallpox whose the is due not to vaccination but to the greater power of resistance possessed by the descendants of those who well fittest to survive.
Many of us, who are still sighting against great odds in these antipodes in the cause of Anti-Vaccination, honor & revere your name, although [4] but few of us have had the pleasure
of meeting you personally.
The medical profession, like [one word crossed out] the legal profession upon which it so ungracefully leans, must sooner or later undergo a thorough reform, and be forced to yield to the weight of evidence that is hourly accumulating against the whole doctrine & practice of vaccination. But "medicine-men" in all countries are slow to admit that they are in the wrong and are rather unscrupulous when in power, and, I am afraid, not easily educated to discriminate
between mere dogma and true scientific demonstration.
Trusting that your new work will prove a success in every respect.
I am | dear Sir | Sincerely yours | William Bugby [signature]
Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP1493.1272)]
For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon
Extracts from
"Vaccination, is it right?" by W. Bugby.
(p.p. 15-19.)
(p. 15.) "What is cancer, and how is it caused? Divested of the pedantic jargon with which our medical profession has invested the subject, it may be briefly and broadly stated that a cancer is the result of an excessive and morbid growth of some of the cells of which any given part or organ is built up, at the expense of the other cells that immediately surround them, and these latter cells [1 word illegible crossed out] being thus deprive of their own proper supply of nourishment, are starved, deteriorate, and die, often leaving a gap, or open ulcer, between the surrounding sound flesh and the central abnormal growth.
Sometimes indeed a cancer grows so rapidly as to starve and kill itself, though such cases are not common. Numerous researches into the nature and history of cancer have shewn [1 word illegible crossed out] [2] beyond all question, that it is often hereditary, and, when thus inherited, frequently remains dormant and unsuspected in the system for 30 or 40 years, although, as a rule, this fact can be ascertained by a reference to the history and fate of the parents of the patient where these are known.
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But cancer had an origin, and [1 word illegible crossed out] consequently may be generated anew whenever the necessary conditions are present, and here we are again furnished with a strong indictment against both ‘calf-lymph’ and arm-to-arm vaccination.
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We all know that it takes about 21 years to complete the growth of a human being, while the growth of a bull or cow is completed in about 4 or 5 years. This is a point worth consideration.
The cells of which the flesh, blood & lymph of the bull or cow is built up, grows so much more rapidly than those composing the flesh of a human being, that to introduce [3] any of the protoplasm, blood, or lymph, from the body of a calf, into the system of a human being is at once to provide the very conditions favourable to the production anew of cancer; for, as soon as this living protoplasm from the calf is introduced into the system of a child or adult, the cells formed by it, in consequence of their growing more rapidly [with] than those formed of human protoplasm, at once begin to exhaust and kill the latter, and may, nay must, at length— although the process be slow long deferred and the result long deferred— cause a cancer. A blow, a twist, a fall, a shake, a strain, may quicken it into more rapid development and a pronounced rodent cancer may ultimately appear.
It is worth notice, also, that the so-called roots of cancer follow the course of the lymphatics, while it is the lymphatic system that is directly & specially invaded by Vaccination.
To introduce any animal substance directly into the lymphatic system is perilous especially as the lymph [4] is, to use Swedenborg’s scientific and forcible expression definition, "the true purer blood." So that even were the actual lymph of a perfectly healthy calf to be introduced into the lymphatic system of a healthy child, the conditions sufficient for the generation of a cancer would be present, owing simply to the mere difference in the rate of growth in the respective cells of calf & child or man.
But the danger is greatly intensified when in the process of Vaccination when the so-called calf-lymph or any other Vaccine lymph— which is really not pure lymph at all but is a morbid product— a clean form of infected or corrupted lymph— virtually pus— is the bestial poison introduced into the human system.
Can we therefore wonder why we meet with so many cases of injury from Vaccination with "pure calf-lymph" (so-called)? How can the product of disease be "pure lymph"? The danger from calf-lymph is as great as that from human-lymph, the use of either is often immediately followed by frightful sloughing sores, incurable ulcers, permanent skin affections, blindness, syphilis & death. "Several eminent cancer specialists have testified to the fact that cancer is both caused and conveyed by the vile practice of vaccination."
Status: Draft transcription [Enclosure (WCP1493.5438)]
For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon
Please cite as “WCP1493,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 28 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP1493