Excerpt from Vaccine Free Prevention and Treatment with Homeopathy:

History of Vaccinosis and the Smallpox Vaccine

Smallpox dates back to 1196 BC in Egypt, 1000 BC in China where epidemics were rampant, and in Europe through the Middle Ages.¹⁷ Smallpox was still widespread and fatal during the late 1700’s when scientists and doctors were looking for ways to reduce the spread of the disease. It was observed that people previously infected with cowpox (an eruptive disease similar to smallpox but less severe) were immune to smallpox. It was also found that inoculation with cowpox disease material would produce a local infection similar to that of the smallpox reaction and would generate life-long immunity to smallpox. The smallpox vaccine (from cowpox matter) was made in 1796 was one of the first ever vaccines to be made available to the public. In the days following the injection of the vaccine, there was a development of a fever and other local reactions including a pitted scar similar to the smallpox scar. According to scientific thought the vaccination “took” if the vaccine could stimulate this initial immune response resulting life-long immunity to smallpox. This local reaction was called vaccinia, in relation to the cowpox disease (see Smallpox for more information).

Burnett, a homeopath contemporary to the use of the smallpox vaccine, introduced the radical idea that the vaccinia reaction to cowpox was not the sign of whether a vaccination had “taken” or had been successful. Rather, he argued, if the vital force could mount a strong response to the vaccination through local reactions and fever, then the vital force was strong enough to fight the vaccine and the full natural disease. He also argued that if the person did not respond to the vaccination, if the prophylaxis “did not take,” it was because the vaccination had implanted itself on the vital force as a disease state and the disease material was absorbed into the body. This absorption of the disease into the body represented a serious condition leading to chronic problems that he termed “vaccinosis.”¹⁷ The vaccinosis of smallpox is a chronic process where other disease symptoms like partial paralysis, neuralgias, cephalalgias, pimples, and acne, etc. develop.

Burnett was the first doctor to forcefully warn against the dangers of vaccination, and the use of material disease agents to protect against serious diseases. He believed that vaccination generated a state of disease, not that of the disease intended to be protected against, but rather a similar low chronic state of ill health; a contracted miasm. This is because pathogenic material injected into the blood stream pollutes the body. Moreover, he stated, if a vaccination does work, it does so because it generates a response on the part of the vital force, on account of its homeopathicity to an inner latent weakness or susceptibility in the vital force to that disease. The latent weakness to the smallpox vaccine is that of the sycotic miasm.¹⁷

Burnett argued that vaccination, as practiced by Pasteur and Jenner (who developed the cowpox vaccine) using material doses, would eventually end in disaster because it was temporary protection. It did not individualize the dose to the strength of the individual and it brought long-term chronic consequences. He argued also that vaccination would actually increase the mortality rate because, in addition to the vaccinosis incurred, if the person also caught the disease the prophylaxis was intended to prevent, they were more likely to die from the disease than if they had just caught the disease without the vaccination.¹⁷ Burnett proposed the use of a homeopathic potency of the germ of disease as a less harmful way to encourage an immune system response without the introduction of the actual disease material into the blood.¹⁷ Through this understanding, the use of homeopathic nosodes was introduced into homeopathic practice. Examples of nosodes are discussed throughout this book in their respective chapters.

Order book here