Letter on vaccination to a medical practitioner / from H. Strickland Constable.

  • Constable, H. Strickland (Henry Strickland), 1821-1909.
Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letter on vaccination to a medical practitioner / from H. Strickland Constable. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    Landowners, their interest was concerned. When landowners said that repealing the corn laws would ruin the country, they honestly believed what they said, only their belief and evidence upon the subject was suf- fused all over with a fine rich color that was derived from supposed self interest. When people left off Wig-makers, wearing pig tails, and the wig makers sent depu- tations to Parliament to petition for compulsory legislation on the subject—that is to say, that wearing of pig tails should be compulsory and not only permissive—on the plea that unless this were done England would sink to a second rate power, they were perfectly honest, only their evidence was given under a bias produced by self interest. When Judge Hale burned people for witchcraft, he honestly believed it was his duty to do so, only neither he nor anyone else in that age could free himself from a belief which he had sucked in with his mother’s milk and had had inculcated into him every subse- quent day of his life. Now, the belief in and evidence for Vaccination may possibly contain in them these three ingredients. Self interest, here- ditary tendency,* and habits of thought during a life time. * It requires only a very short time for a mental tendency to get into the blood, and thus become in the next generation innate. A dog is taught to beg, that is to sit bolt upright with its fore paws doubled down. But this dog’s progeny will beg without being taught. Wendell Holmes tells a story of a man who was in the habit of pulling his old Father out of the house to one particular spot and thrashing him, and when he grew old, his son, who had inherited the mental tendency, adopted exactly the same habit with him. and always thrashed him in exactly the same .spot..