Your assertion is fallacious; vaccination was not abandoned in Leicester during that time period. If you have an earnest love for history I encourage you to peruse the archives of peer-reviewed medical journals such as
The British Medical Journal (today known simply as BMJ);
The Lancet; and
The Practitioner; and other credible sources who wrote extensively during the era such as The British Medical Association and the
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and to read them unedited and with the vital necessity of context. Learn directly from the unadulterated statements and publishings of professionals involved in making that history. You can also read where prominent anti-vaccinists such as J.B. Biggs were castigated for falsified and misleading statements that generated confusion and grave detriment. Much of the revised versions of history that have been spun were launched by him. JSTOR is an excellent resource for reading academic journals; you login via your college's access to it (those who are not students can use the credentials of their local public library). Please do not rely exclusively upon excerpts severed from their original source and sewn together elsewhere; if you do so, please look at the publisher and their reputation for credibility. I'm providing you with a few excerpts, but also with the links so you and anyone else eager for knowledge about this topic is equipped to read the source in its entirety.
What caused the most damage, in the 1800s, as now, was not the overt anti-vaccination propaganda that was easily identifiable, but the sly subterfuge and half-truths by those with the appearance of impartiality who therefore earned more trust from the public. The November 27, 1897 and December 25, 1897 issues of
The Lancet addresses myths and inaccurate data disseminated by anti-vaccinationists about Leicester and how the myths metaphorically infected other towns. When directly confronted with the assertion that vaccination was discontinued, some then claimed that what they truly meant was that infant vaccination was no longer practiced, not that all vaccination had been. Asterisks with such imperative clarifications are often not affixed to claims when they're passed along through the generations, though. It's also essential to use historical facts as a frame of reference when studying Leicester in the late 1880s. The smallpox vaccine was developed nearly a century prior, and following The United Kingdom Vaccination Act 1853 outbreaks became increasingly less common and deadly throughout the country, thus leading to some arguing that the vaccine was no longer necessary. In 1872 the childhood vaccination rate in Leicester was 90 percent, so even if vaccination truly had been abandoned during the period you've outlined, a substantial portion of that population had already been vaccinated. Leicester was also buffered by towns that had higher vaccination rates.
The myth that vaccination was abandoned in Leicester during that period was seeded by Victorian-era opponents to compulsory vaccination and propagated by anti-vaccinists throughout the decades since.
Then, as now, this was to the vexation of physicians and public health officials who realized the significant detriment of the falsehood. This is a letter Dr. Joseph Priestley, who was appointed Medical Officer of Health for Leicester in 1892, wrote to
The British Medical Journal on
March 18, 1893 to correct the false claims that vaccination had been abandoned in his city, when in fact, he'd personally revaccinated staff at the Leicester Fever Hospital.
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In a
July 6, 1895 edition of
The Lancet, Priestley is praised for successfully overcoming the strong anti- vaccinating opposition during a minor smallpox epidemic, without giving in "an iota" in regards to his stalwart views of the efficacy of vaccination and revaccination:
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Volume 52 of
The Practitioner details the smallpox outbreak in Leicester in 1892-1893, noting that the adults who lead the anti-vaccinist campaign had themselves received the protection of vaccination in their youth, and were leaving the children exposed and vulnerable (history has certainly repeated itself in that regard). They noted on page 466 that a "good deal of vaccination, and especially re-vaccination, has been carried out in Leicester without any record being kept of it; indeed it is notorious that some who were willing to remain negligent in the matter during the long period of immunity from smallpox through which England, including Leicester, has passed, have not failed during the last two years to seek protection by means of an operation which, openly at least, they professedly despised."
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Killick Millard, Priestley's successor as Leicester's Medical Officer of Health, was a sturdy proponent of vaccination and revaccination, and saw to it that his own children were vaccinated, as well as medical staff. But he was also a pragmatist who wanted to ameliorate the tensions caused by polarizing anti-and pro-vaccine sentiments because he recognized the importance of sanitation in conjunction with vaccination, rather than it being an either / or. He did not endorse compulsory infant vaccination, but did believe in vaccination and revaccination being used for high-risk individuals, such as the hospital staff, and for those who contracted smallpox. Though smallpox was savage, causing the afflicted immense distress, it actually offered a window of grace measles doesn't, in that vaccination could be administered after initial symptoms had emerged to effectively treat the individual and substantially reduce the chance of an outbreak within the community. In the mid 1890s when there was calm after the earlier epidemic and before the storm of outbreaks in the early 1900s, the "Leicester Method" meant notification, hospital isolation (which was very expensive), disinfection, vaccination, and surveillance of contacts.
The vaccination question in the light of modern experience : an appeal for reconsideration / by C. Killick Millard
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When smallpox struck again in the early 1900s, far more aggressively, he correspondingly intensified the push for vaccination. In the
Report on the Smallpox Epidemic in Leicester in 1904 he wrote that "no pains were spared to persuade as many as possible of the inmates of the invaded houses to submit to vaccination." In the
The Vaccination Question linked above, Millard has a chapter titled Vaccination v. Sanitation, but then proceeds to explain how that title is actually a false dichotomy. By that point in history, with vaccination having radically reduced the severity of epidemics, he didn't believe compulsory infant vaccination was necessary, and that sanitation measures were critical. But, he also recognized the necessity of vaccination. His conclusion was that sanitation and vaccination should be combined.
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Millard also systematically noted the characteristics of smallpox that distinguished it from other "zymotic diseases" (this was the medical term used during that era for acute infectious diseases such as measles, scarlet fever, whooping cough, and diphtheria) and explained how for those diseases, the "Leicester Method" would be counterproductive. In other words, it's incorrect to extrapolate that because sanitary measures employed in Leicester did (again, in tandem with vaccination) assist in reducing the rate of mortality from smallpox during the late 1800s and early 1900s, that sanitation and not vaccination was responsible for the reduced mortality from other diseases such as the measles and whooping cough. Decades before the vaccines for measles and whooping cough existed, he explicitly stated that sanitation would have minimal impact upon these diseases. Someone with the measles can appear to be vibrantly healthy without any hint of the disease percolating inside of them, and go out and enjoy Disneyland, school, work, play, without realizing they are contagious and transmitting the disease to others.
The British Medical Association published Facts about Smallpox and Vaccination in 1905 and discusses Leicester numerous times.
Facts about smallpox and vaccination [print/digital]. in SearchWorks catalog
On page 16 it is noted that Glasgow had an enormous decrease in the rate of smallpox following the usage of vaccination, despite the increasing deterioration of sanitation. Conversely, other UK towns where vaccination had been neglected but sanitation standards were considered exemplary suffered tremendously when smallpox struck again. On pages 17 and 18 it discusses the smallpox outbreak in Leicester in the early 1900s and the inconsistencies of the Andrew Wakefield of the day, J.T. Biggs. "The so-called Leicester Method," as described by the well-known Leicester anti-vaccationist, Mr. J.T. Biggs, purports to prevent smallpox "without recourse to vaccination." But when smallpox comes, the medical officer, speaking of vaccination of contacts, states that he "freely resorted to it during the epidemic." It also notes how there were no exceptions among the hospital nurses in Leicester who cared for those afflicted with smallpox: all were vaccinated and escaped the disease.
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Edit to add:
@keith99 and
@Larnievc also provided you with reputable sources explaining that vaccination had not, in fact, been abandoned in Leicester as alleged, and I recommend reading them because they both provide comprehensive overviews.
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