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[Extracted from] [1912] LEICESTER: SANITATION versus VACCINATION BY J.T. BIGGS J.P.

CHAPTER  109: Leicester's Evidence Against Anti-Toxin.

The statistics already furnished (collated from various sources) comprise a sweeping condemnation of the use of anti-toxin, but Leicester people will be anxious to know whether the results in their own borough coincide with the teaching of other towns and countries of the world. The evidence Leicester supplies is no less emphatic and conclusive as to the utter worthlessness of anti-toxin as a curative agent for diphtheria. Having prepared a number of statistics which have stood the test of a crucial examination before the Royal Commission on Vaccination, I am, fortunately, able to furnish the diphtheria figures for Leicester from the earliest complete year of registration—namely, 1838.

Table 38 shows the total and annual average number of deaths, with the annual average death-rate per million living. Side by side with the various periods, I have entered notes of events which may affect both the cases and the mortality.

GRAPH F.
ILLUSTRATING    TABLE   38.
LEICESTER—DIPHTHERIA. 1838—1910.
AVERAGE ANNUAL MORTALITY per million population, in quinquennial periods, before and after the introduction and use of antitoxin in 1895.
Before Antitoxin,                                                                                After Antitoxin,
1838-1892.                                                                                        1893-1910.
Annual average cases    ....                    6.2.                                     Annual average.      .  61.0
Annual average death-rate, per million   6.5.                                    Death-rate per million 29.4

TABLE 38.
Table   showing,   for  the   BOROUGH   OF   LEICESTER,
during the years 1838-1910, in quinquennial periods, the total number and annual average deaths from Diphtheria ;
with, the annual average death-rate per million living. (See Graph F.)

From 1838 to 1858, deaths registered as putrid and other sore throats have been tabulated as Diphtheria.—J. T. B.

This table shows that in the five years 1898-1902, when the serum treatment was in full swing, no fewer than 785 deaths occurred from diphtheria, being 452 more than took place during fifteen years previous to the introduction of anti-toxin, and 286 more than occurred during the preceding sixty years (three of which were not only anti­toxin years, but accounted for about one-third of the whole number of deaths in the sixty years).

The death-rate from diphtheria was only an annual average of 33 per million living in Leicester in the years 1848-52 ; and the highest death-rate in pre-anti-toxin years was 92 per million, in 1878-82. After the serum treatment commenced, the death-rate went up to an annual average of 755 for 1898-1902, being 663 per million higher than in any previously recorded period of years. The highest death-rate for a single year in pre-anti-toxin times was 192 per million, and the lowest nothing. Anti-toxin years give a death-rate of 1,514 per million for the highest, and 27 per million for the lowest. Who, therefore, will venture to affirm that Leicester people have obtained any benefit from the use of anti-toxin ? Diphtheria had never been of very serious or fatal consequence in Leicester in the years preceding anti-toxin, but the number of cases and deaths went up by leaps and bounds when this virus was introduced.

We may now consider what is erroneously regarded by medical men as a supreme test of the value of anti-toxin—i.e., the case fatality. There are no authentic records of the number of diphtheria cases in Leicester before 1880, so the case fatality-rate prior to that year cannot be ascertained. This is of no serious consequence, because comparatively few deaths were recorded before 1880 from this cause, the highest number in any one year being 11 in each of the years 1870 and 1879.

TABLE 39.
Table showing, for the BOROUGH OF LEICESTER, during the years 1880 to 1910, the annual number of notified cases of Diphtheria and deaths; with the fatality per cent, and the same arranged quinquennially; with the annual average percentage of fatality.

 The above table gives the number of cases, the number of deaths, the case fatality, with the total number of cases and deaths in each quinquennium, and the annual average fatality-rate for each year, from 1880 to 1910 inclusive. It will be seen that a much larger number of deaths occurred in the anti-toxin periods, compared with the earlier ones, also that the case fatality for 1895-99 was about double that of the non-toxin years. Even when the case fatality was reduced to 13.1 from 1900 to 1904, what conceivable advantage could that be, when the cases were double any previously recorded number, and the deaths more than had ever been known ?

The fallacy of giving case fatality as a test is more fully shown by taking fifteen years prior to anti-toxin and fifteen years after the virus had been in vogue.    These I place side by side : -

TABLE 40. Before and After the Use of Anti-Toxin.

Here it will be seen that for the first fifteen years we had only 1,048 cases and 171 deaths, whereas in the second fifteen years, with all the increased advantages of sanitation, and up-to-date hospital accommodation, we had no less than 5,636 cases and 1,059 deaths.

In the first period, the cases were less than 70 per annum, while in the anti-toxin period they rose to nearly 376, an increase of over 500 per cent.

In the former period, the deaths from diphtheria averaged less than 12 each year, whilst in the anti-toxin period they reached over 70 per year, or the enormous increase of about 600 per cent.

The anti-toxin case fatality is not only higher than the pre-anti-toxin case fatality, but the actual number of deaths shows it was more than six times as deadly. In other words, for one death in pre-serum years, no less than six occurred under the "benign" influence of anti-toxin.

The fallacy of accepting case fatality as the one or only test of the supposed benefit of anti­toxin is further illustrated by Japan. The Serum Institute of Japan published a report, accompanied by a diagram, which was exhibited at the Japan-British Exhibition. Dr. M. R. Leverson has since published this diagram with the figures in "Inoculations and the Germ Theory of Disease," and it is from this I quote. In the seven years before anti-toxin, 1889-95, there were 30,039 cases and 16,571 deaths, or a case fatality-rate of 55.2. During the seven years after anti-toxin, 1896-1902, there were 112,588 cases, with 36,656 deaths, or a case fatality-rate of 32.6. Apparently there is an enormous saving by the reduction of the case fatality, but this is obtained by an increase of 82,549 cases and 20,085 deaths. In other words, since the introduction of anti-toxin in Japan, these deaths have more than doubled and the cases have nearly quadrupled !

Some day we may hope to end these atrocious inoculations, but it almost makes one despair, when we read such astounding statements as that made by the Lord Mayor of London, who, on opening the Old London Exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, on 1st November, 1911, is reported to have said :—

" London in the fourteenth century was most interesting to the present generation as a study. In those old days London had the Black Death, from which one out of every two died."

It is very curious how London, which is reputed to have lost one out of every two of its citizens by Black Death—the other half  by  the  Plague—was  decimated  every   few years by small-pox and a number of other epidemics, to say nothing of those who died a natural death, should have survived, and become the great and populous city as we know it to-day. It is a pity our public men do not acquire a more accurate knowledge of the history of our Empire city.

The facts I have enumerated prove beyond contradiction that anti-toxin does not cure diphtheria ; that the number of cases and deaths from diphtheria have enormously increased since the anti-toxin treatment was adopted ; that it is a dangerous poison, uncertain in action, and uncontrollable in its results ; that it frequently sets up the very fermentation it is alleged to cure ; and that it is a failure as fatal and gruesome as Professor Koch's tuberculin, which, after a fortune-making but mortiferous career, was kicked unceremoniously aside for something new, even by the renowned inventor himself.

A similar fate awaits the anti-toxin virus fraud, and the sooner it is overtaken by the Nemesis which is on its track, the better will it be for the health, happiness, and physical welfare of humanity.

Statistically, whether as a cure or a remedy, anti-toxin (like all other inoculations) has not a leg to stand upon. It follows in the wake of a long series of delusions, with equally disastrous results to long-suffering humanity. There have been inoculations for small-pox, the plague, tetanus, tuberculosis, typhoid, snake venom, pneumonia, syphilis, yellow fever, leprosy, hydrophobia, erysipelas, and I know not what, until we have almost reached that glorious time, foreshadowed by Professor Tyndall, who fervently hoped and laboured for universal inoculation for all diseases. It must never be forgotten that incalculable pain, suffering, and cruelty to innumerable inoffensive animals is involved in every one of these inoculation experiments before they are ready to be offered to the public. Even then the text books which advertise these con­coctions utter words of warning as to the danger of their use, and emphatically impress upon practitioners that " the old medicinal treatment should not be neglected." What further comment is needed ! ! !