Very interesting! I haven’t get to the end of the article yet - because I’m congenitally almost incapable of passing a link to the main report from 1868 - and it looks an unexpectedly good read.
https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/pdf/b21355629
…and is also written in appealing prose. It’s not pastable to a document though.
Sample from ye Olde Preface:
“The Author is in possession of data which would enable him to extend the following Essay into a complete treatise, and it would be interesting to do so, though tedious for the general reader; but he prefers presenting the subject in a comparatively brief essay, in the hope that his professional brethren, now wedded to their Jennerian theory, will, fairly and without prejudice, examine the question. Should his humble efforts excite excite the attention of the Philanthropist, the Statistician and the Medical Philosopher - above all, should the author’s efforts to elucidate the subject, lead to the suspension or repeal of all Acts of Parliament on Vaccination, that the people may exercise their inherent right of choice in medical matters, and no longer be submitted to the indignity of being fined in a Magisterial Court for refusing, at the bidding of the State, to contaminate their offspring, he will have the satisfaction and happiness of knowing that his labour has not been in vain.”
Recognize the main protagonists, and themes?
Good luck with the Philanthropists these days!
ED