764 
VACCINATION AND EQUINE DISEASES. 
of the funds paid by the ratepayer, desire that boards of 
guardians shall resist the tyrannical dictation of the Poor- 
law Board and the medical department of the Privy Council 
until the vaccination laws are repealed.^^ Dr. Collins, a 
St. Pancras guardian, in supporting the motion, said that 
he had been a public vaccinator for twenty years, and had 
come to the conclusion, after numerous experiments, that 
vaccination was a farce and a sham, and no protection 
against smallpox. The vaccine, in the majority of cases, 
introduced diseases into the system and poisoned the blood 
of healthy children. Consumption had been greatly increased 
in this country since Dr. Jenner first introduced vaccination; 
and deaths from that disease stood high in the lists of the 
mortality of England. 
The resolution was supported by Dr. Pearce, Mr. Edmond 
Beales, and others. 
This evidence of Drs. Collins and Pearce has been embo¬ 
died, I believe, in a pamphlet, so that those of your readers 
interested in this subject may satisfy themselves that the 
above opinions are really those promulgated by these gen¬ 
tlemen. 
In the mean time I am only anxious to state, that so far 
as these assertions refer to the horse and cow they are erro¬ 
neous and untrustw^orthy, and their enunciation deserves the 
severest reprobation, eminently calculated as they are to 
mislead the more credulous and simple portion of the public, 
and thus cause the gravest mischief. The vaccine of Jenner 
was not and is not the product of tubercular consumption or 
long-established lung disease in horses, neither has it had 
anything whatever to do with diseased lungs in its origin. 
The disease vulgarly known as grease in the horse (now^- 
adays very rare) is a local inflammation of the skin covering 
the lower portions of the limbs, accompanied by a discharge 
to which it owes its name, and is in the great majority of 
cases caused by external agencies (such as cold, wet, and 
dirt) acting on these parts. I am not aware that the lungs 
are ever involved in this malady; indeed, tubercular disease 
of these organs in the horse is far from being common, and 
is in nearly every instance an accompaniment of that terrible 
equine disorder, glanders. 
Grease, particularly in its early stages and before the 
inflammation has become chronic, is readily cured, and I 
cannot find a case on record in which the lungs were at all 
implicated in this affection of the legs. Besides, since the 
days of Jenner, some of the very highest authorities, medical 
and veterinary, have entertained doubts as to whether the 
