With remarks on Homoeoprophylaxis.
FEAR not, critical reader, this is not an anti-vaccination treatise, for the writer is himself in the habit of vaccinating his patients, au besoin, and vaccination does protect, to a certain large extent, from small-pox, though the protection must necessarily cease as soon as the vaccinated person has slowly returned to his pristine state of pure health.
The writer starts with this declaration just to clear the ground, and to explain that the following pages are neither pro- vaccinational nor antivaccinational in the ordinary sense, inasmuch as their scope is essentially one of aetiopathology and cure, and of Homoeoprophylaxis -That is to say: the writer’s aim is to show, 1st, that there exists a diseased state of the constitution which is engendered by the vaccinial virus (the so called lymph), which state he proposes to call VACCINOSIS, or the Vaccinial State; and 2ndly, that there exists also in nature a notable remedy for said Vaccinosis, viz: the Thuja Occidentalis; and 3rdly, that Thuja is a remedy of Vaccinosis by reason of its homoeopathicity thereto; 4thly, that the law of similars also applies to the prevention of disease.
Vaccinosis does not express merely the same thing as vaccinia, for the latter means the febrile reaction which occurs in an organism after vaccination, with special reference to the local phenomena at the point where the vaccinial pus, or lymph, is inserted. Sometimes, also, the term vaccinia is applied to a general varioloid eruption following vaccination; but here, vaccinia is commonly held to end.
Now all this is included by me in the term vaccinosis, but still I do not mean merely this, but also that profound and often long-lasting morbid constitutional state engendered by the vaccine virus, which virus we usually euphemistically term “lymph.” Lymph, of course, it is not, but pus, by vaccination, is vaccinosis: and in it are not included any other diseases whose causes may be accidentally or incidentally contained in the vaccine pus,-such as scrofulosis, syphilis or tuberculosis.
At the time of the publication of the first edition of this little work, I brought down the critics upon my devoted head on account of my having called vaccine lymph pus, and thereupon I replied to my otherwise un-get-at-able reviewers by issuing a pamphlet proving my standpoint. I do not here propose dragging in the question of pus versus lymph, further than to say this:-What the thing is called is of no consequence so far as my thesis on vaccinosis is concerned, inasmuch as whether pus or lymph, it is only as carrier of the virus that it really concerns us. The cow-pox when inoculated produces cow-pox or vaccinia (vacca, a cow). This is the accepted theory of vaccination. This granted, it follows that true vaccination must form pocks (pox), which we all know it really does. The end result of every successful vaccination is a pustular eruption, viz., pox (=pocks).
Now, every pustule is first a vesicle, and in the vesicle the pus is lymph-like and clearish (not so clear as a true vesicle), but it contains leucocytes; in a certain number of hours the vesicle- contents become opaque, and no one questions that it is now pus.
Wherefore I maintain that the contents of a pustule are of the nature of pus, even though they be taken in the vesicular stage of pustulation, and the absolute proof that it is indeed pus, lies in the fact that if you successfully vaccinate a child with the so-called lymph, and the process goes through its natural course, you get as end result a local crop of-what? pustules, or pocks. It is very important to know exactly what we are dealing with, for calling the thing lymph is not fair and square. Let the great question of vaccination stand or fall on its own merits, and do not let us try to persuade ourselves and others that it is “lymph” and that “lymph” is a nice thing and as pleasant to contemplate as nymphs at play in a limpid stream. However as before said, be it pus or be it lymph, it is all one to us in the consideration of vaccinosis, for it concerns us only, as the carrier of the virus of vaccinia.
Burnett was one of the first to speak about vaccination triggering illness. This was discussed in his book, Vaccinosis, published in 1884. He introduced the remedy Bacillinum. He authored twenty books, including the much loved "Fifty Reason for Being a Homeopath." He was the editor of The Homoeopathic World.