Vaccination Quotes (7 quotes)
The Devil: Reformers … will thrust you first into religion, where you will sprinkle water on babies to save their souls from me ; then it will drive you from religion into science, where you will snatch the babies from the water sprinkling and inoculate them with disease to save them from catching it accidentally.
A drop of old tuberculin, which is an extract of tubercle bacilli, is put on the skin and then a small superficial scarification is made by turning, with some pressure, a vaccination lancet on the surface of the skin. The next day only those individuals show an inflammatory reaction at the point of vaccination who have already been infected with tuberculosis, whereas the healthy individuals show no reaction at all. Every time we find a positive reaction, we can say with certainty that the child is tuberculous.
I attained a triumph so complete that it is now rare to meet an American with marks of small pox on his face... Benefits are valuable according to their duration and extent, like the showers from heaven, but the benign remedy Vaccination saves millions of lives every century, like the blessing of the sun, universal and everlasting.
(Remark made near the end of his life.)
(Remark made near the end of his life.)
It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit for continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccinations is broad enough to cover cutting Fallopian tubes. Three generations of imbeciles are enough.
Vaccination was discovered, and, like all new discoveries, had at the first to maintain a vigorous battle for existence. It was condemned by the church as a cunning device of the devil to defeat the judgments of God. Nevertheless, it has triumphed, and is now adopted by the best instructed of all nations.
What opposite discoveries we have seen!
(Signs of true genius, and of empty pockets.)
One makes new noses, one a guillotine,
One breaks your bones, one sets them in their sockets;
But vaccination certainly has been
A kind antithesis to Congreve's rockets, ...
(Signs of true genius, and of empty pockets.)
One makes new noses, one a guillotine,
One breaks your bones, one sets them in their sockets;
But vaccination certainly has been
A kind antithesis to Congreve's rockets, ...
Whereas you have a very expensive dept. for destroying human life, would it not be for the honour of the New World to have a little national establishment for the preservation of human life; more especially as the devouring monster, small pox, has already destroyed many millions (some say 40) more lives than there are people now on the face of the earth.
(Conclusion of a letter (14 Dec 1826) to Massachusetts Congressman Edward Everett (1794-1865), in which he outlined his experience with vaccination.)
(Conclusion of a letter (14 Dec 1826) to Massachusetts Congressman Edward Everett (1794-1865), in which he outlined his experience with vaccination.)