The American Medical Association 
VS. 
HENRY A. MARTIN,. M.D., 
MEMBER OF SAID ASSOCIATION, 
AND 
LATE CHAIRMAN OF ITS COMMITTEE ON VACCINATION. 
BOSTON: 
1871. The American Medical Association 
VS. 
HENRY A. MARTIN, M.D., 
MEMBER OF SAID ASSOCIATION, 
AND 
LATE CHAIRMAN OF ITS COMMITTEE ON VACCINATION. 
BOSTON: 
1871. BOSTON : 
PRINTED BY RAND, AVERY, & FRYF, 
NO. 3, CORN HILL. PREFACE. 
“ Dr. Henry A. Martin of Boston, Chairman of the Commit- 
tee on Vaccination, was removed for using insulting language 
toward the association in an article on vaccination which he 
had published in “ The Homoeopathic Journal.” 
The above paragraph appeared, on the 5th of May past, in the 
telegraphic column of every daily paper from Popham’s Colony 
to Patagonia. Knowing what strange freaks are sometimes 
played by telegraphic-operators, I supposed that there was some 
mistake, not in the announcement of my removal, but of its 
cause ; for nothing could be farther from my thought than offer- 
ing insult to the American Medical Association or any of its 
members. When, however, a full report was received, I found 
that the telegram was very nearly accurate. I was removed from 
the Chairmanship of the Committee on Vaccination ; my expulsion 
was moved ; a motion was also made that charges should be 
preferred against me ; and, after a great deal more of froth and 
fury, the whole matter was turned over to the Committee on 
Ethics, who, in turn, have referred it to the Massachusetts Medical 
Society. 
As it is, perhaps, important that the members of that Society 
should have a knowledge of the enormity on which they are 
required to sit in judgment, more precise and full than they 
would be likely to glean from newspaper scraps and button-hole 
whispers, I have prepared this pamphlet, containing, 1st, So 
much of the report of the late meeting of the American Medical 
Association as relates to me ; and, 2d, The “ Teternma causa 
belli," the obnoxious article. I hope, before giving any verdict 4 
either in their corporate or individual capacity, gentlemen of the 
Massachusetts Medical Society will give both a careful and fair 
consideration. 
I have for nearly thirty years devoted a great deal of atten- 
tion to vaccination, and, for about fifteen years, to what, in the 
total absence of all State or National provision, has proved the 
extremely important specialty of procuring, propagating, and sup- 
plying to the profession, the best attainable vaccine virus. The prac- 
tice of this laborious specialty has brought me into direct and most 
agreeable communication with many thousands of physicians in 
every part of America, and of every grade and shade of medical 
education and opinion. I have never asked an applicant for 
vaccine lymph, or information in regard to vaccination, whether 
he believed in this or that doctrine or dogma: I only knew, that, 
in supplying such means and counsel, I accomplished just so much 
towards the understanding and advancement of a most benefi- 
cent practice, which, notwithstanding the arduous labors of the 
American Medical Association, is wofully neglected, and far from 
perfectly understood and appreciated. When, therefore, an 
opportunity was literally offered me to communicate directly with 
a body of from five to six thousand physicians, having absolute 
medical control of millions of human beings, and having myself, 
besides, information to communicate, which in my opinion, as it 
soon will be in that of every intelligent physician, is second only 
in importance to that afforded by Jenner in the original an- 
nouncement of his discovery, I did not hesitate. I was invited 
to write a note on ANIMAL VACCINATION, to be published 
in a perfectly respectable homoeopathic journal edited by a distin- 
guished Fellow of the Massachusetts Medical Society. I wrote the 
note at once, and shall offer no apology whatever, either for it or 
the place where I saw fit to publish it, only regretting, now that 
it has gained such wide and widening publicity, that it was so 
hastily done, so little worthy of the kind and unkind notice that 
it has received. I do not believe in Homoeopathy. I have, over and over again, 
written and spoken my disbelief; but I have done so boldly, 
openly, and, I hope, fairly and honorably, and have no sympathy 
with the wretched intolerance, which, as it once infested Theology, 
still largely infests Medicine, and excites the contempt and deris- 
ion of all fair and candid minds. 
The time will yet come when societies of medical men will not 
be thought to cover themselves with honor, by not even permit- 
ting a Homoeopathist to utter a single word unstifled by hisses and 
groans, or by howling anathemas, and flinging lying telegrams 
broadcast over the land, to the attempted detriment of a brother, 
whose only crime has been to strive, by all honorable means, for 
the wider and fuller diffusion of what every sane physician, of 
whatever school, considers a matchless blessing and benefit to 
humanity. Henry A. Martin. 
5 
27 Dudley Street, Boston Highlands. 
June 2, 1871. EXTRACTS 
From Report of Transactions of American Medical Associa- 
tion, at its Twenty-second Annual Convention at San 
Francisco on the 2d, 3d, 4///, and 5th of May, 1871 ; be- 
ing so much thereof as has relation to the matter of Henry 
A. Martin, M.D., late Chairman of Committee on Vacci- 
nation. 
FIRST DAY. 
Committee on Vaccination, Dr. Henry A. Martin, Mass- 
achusetts, Chairman, continued for one year. 
Dr. Gibbons read an article on vaccination, published in 
a homoeopathic journal,* by Dr. Henry A. Martin, with his 
official title, as Chairman of Committee on Vaccination of 
the American Medical Association, affixed. The opinions 
enunciated by the writer seemed to grate harshly on the 
ears of members of the profession. When he had finished 
reading the article, Dr. Gibbons moved for a reconsidera- 
tion of the vote whereby Dr. Martin was continued Chair- 
man of the Committee on Vaccination for another year. 
The gentleman had insulted each and every member of the 
association by the publication ; and, in justice to themselves, 
immediate action should be taken in the matter. 
SECOND DAY. 
* The New-England Medical Gazette, January, 1871. 8 
Dr. Storer was unacquainted with the circumstances of 
the case, and felt that the association should suspend judg- 
ment until Dr. Martin could be heard. 
Members called for a second reading of the article. 
Dr. Gibbons read the first few lines. 
Members. — “ That’s enough.” 
Dr. Dawson said that the article was an insult to every 
member of the association, and moved that Dr. Martin be 
expelled as a member of the association. 
Dr. Bibb offered an amendment, — that a committee of 
three be appointed to prefer charges against the gentleman. 
Dr. Davis suggested the reference of the matter to the 
Massachusetts State Medical Society, to which Dr. Martin 
belonged. 
Dr. Johnson gave Massachusetts a shot for her delin- 
quencies : many of the members consorted with homoeo- 
pathists in that State ; hence nothing would be accom- 
plished by referring the matter to the local society there. 
Dr. Stout offered an amendment to Dr. Bibb’s motion, — 
that the matter be referred to the Committee on Ethics. 
Dr. Gibbons’s motion to remove prevailed : Dr. Stout’s 
amendment to refer the matter to the Committee on Ethics 
was also passed. 
The Committee on Ethics was appointed by the chair, 
and consists of Dr. Henry Gibbons, Dr. Davis of Chicago, 
Dr. F. S. Smith, Dr. Parsons, and Dr. Toner. 
FOURTH DAY. 
The Committee on Ethics reported to refer the case of 
Dr. Martin of Massachusetts, mentioned in the record of 9 
the first day’s meeting, to the local society. Dr. T. M. 
Wise of Kentucky was appointed Chairman of the Com- 
mittee on Vaccination, in place of Dr. Martin, removed. 
THE OBNOXIOUS ARTICLE. 
Reprinted from “ The New-England Medical Gazette,” ed- 
ited by Dr. I. T. Talbot (Fellow of the Massachusetts 
Medical Society), Vol. VI., No. I., January, 1871. 
ANIMAL VACCINATION. 
Mr. Editor, — I am not one of your household of medi- 
cal faith, in fact, quite the reverse ; but, whatever I may 
have done in the past, I shall not now write a line that can 
ruffle the temper of the most sensitive believer in Hahne- 
mann and his famous dogma. In these days of professional 
difference, it is pleasant and profitable to know that there 
are some few matters in which we all agree. Vaccination 
is one of these. Throwing out of all consideration, as, in- 
deed, it should always be thrown out, a class of men, who 
through imperfect knowledge or immense self-conceit, or 
more frequently from an almost necessary union of the two 
qualities, are inevitable sceptics, no physician, of whatever 
school, denies the immense benefits of the discovery of 
Jenner. From a very early period of my student-life, now 
nearly thirty years ago, I was fully convinced of its infinite 
value, and filled with wonder, also, that so clear and great 
a good should be so imperfectly appreciated by the people, 
and even by the profession. Stranger still is it, that, in a 
country so widely and justly noted for general intelligence 
as this, no provision whatever should be made by the State IO 
for the vaccination of the people, or even for the proper and 
methodical protection of the army and navy. Thinking of 
all these things, I have always devoted great and constant 
attention to the subject, and, for the past twelve years, have 
endeavored, with a success which has given me great com- 
fort and encouragement, to perform an office, which, in all 
other civilized countries, is assumed by the' government,— 
that of supplying the profession with the best attainable 
materiel for vaccination. 
In the performance of this duty, I spared no pains to ob- 
tain the very best stocks of vaccine virus. I entered into 
correspondence with many of the European governments, 
and with some of the most distinguished writers upon and 
practitioners of vaccination. I obtained from Germany, 
France, and England supplies of lymph from many and 
different sources. After fully and fairly testing these, I at 
last came to the conclusion that the very best of all known 
“ stocks ” of humanized virus was that so religiously pre- 
served by the National Vaccine Institution, derived by suc- 
cessive human vaccinations, for seventy years, from lymph 
collected by the hand of Jenner himself. The virus which 
I have issued for eight years has been from this Jennerian 
“stock.” The vaccinations^made from this lymph seemed 
to me to leave nothing to be desired ; and when, failing 
leisure to visit Paris myself, I sent a special and most in- 
telligent agent there last spring, to fully investigate the 
whole subject of animal vaccination, and to procure ample 
supplies of lymph in such forms as should enable me to 
inaugurate the method in America, it was more from a feel- 
ing that it was incumbent upon me to investigate fully 
every thing relating to my favorite specialty, rather than 11 
from any hope or expectation that the new source and 
method of supply would prove superior, or even equal, to 
that which I had so long enthusiastically and honestly com- 
mended. I was resolved, however, to thoroughly investi- 
gate the subject, and to give the result of my experiments 
and observations to the profession. My impression was 
that the verdict would be adverse. It has proved entirely 
otherwise. After four months’ daily study of animal vacci- 
nation, and the phenenoma in the human and bovine 
species, following the use of the two original “ stocks ” of 
which I shall speak, I have no hesitation whatever in as- 
serting, that, in every respect, this lymph gives evidence of 
its superiority to any of which I have had any previous 
personal knowledge. This superiority is shown in every 
stage of the disease induced by its inoculation, — in the 
greater size and perfection of form and color of the vesicle 
and areola; in the decidedly greater, though by no means 
violent or alarming, febrile phenomena on the ninth and 
tenth days ; in the uniform perfection of form and umbili- 
cated centre, &c., and much greater size, of the crusts ; and 
last, though by no means least, the adherence of the crust 
to the full twenty-one days mentioned by the older writers, 
and from that to even thirty days. All the points in which 
the new lymph differs from the old are in favor of the new, 
without exception. In all respects, vaccinations made with 
it correspond exactly with those described by Jenner, 
Willan, Brice, and the numerous writers of the first decade 
of the century. No other vaccinations I have ever made, 
however perfect I may have considered them, have thus ex- 
actly corresponded. 
For instance, the two most satisfactory “ stocks ” of which 
I had any previous practical knowledge were that of Ceely 12 
(vvhich I received from himself, and which was derived from 
the variolation of the cow), and of the National Vaccine 
Institution of England. In both of these, the course of the 
disease was very regular, the succession of phenomena per- 
fectly uniform ; but in both it was shorter than in Jenner’s 
classic description. With Ceely’s “stock,” the areola com- 
menced on the seventh day, and was fully formed at the 
end of the eighth : the vesicles and resulting crusts were 
smaller, the crust easily removable on the twelfth or thir- 
teenth, and falling spontaneously on the fourteenth or fif- 
teenth day. The areola of the institution “stock” began 
at the end of the seventh day, and was fully formed before 
the ninth ; the vesicles and crusts a good deal larger and 
more perfect in form than those of Ceely ; but the latter 
easily detached on the fourteenth day, and often falling on 
the fifteenth or sixteenth, — always long before the twenty- 
first. I have written hastily this — not article, but mere 
announcement — to your readers, of the results to which I 
have come in using lymph taken from heifers inoculated 
from other heifers, in long succession, from an original case 
of cow-pox, discovered in 1866 at Beaugency in France, 
and from others inoculated in the same manner from one 
to another; from a heifer inoculated from a spontaneous 
case of “ horse-pox,” the fully-proved origin of the disease 
as occurring in the cow.* 
* The doctrine that the vaccine disease in the cow was derived from the 
horse was strongly insisted upon by Jenner : he maintained, however, that 
this disease of the horse was that known to farriers as the “ grease.” In this 
he was at once right and wrong. In those early days, large groups of differ- 
ing diseases, even in man, were included under one term. Much more was 
this the case in veterinary medicine and the wretched empiricism of farriers 
and jockeys, which passed for such. Under the term “grease” were in- 13 
At some future and not distant time, I shall endeavor to 
write more fully on this subject: at present, my very scanty 
leisure only permits such hasty and desultory efforts as the 
present. I have fitted up a stable and office in the rear of my 
residence, 27 Dudley Street, Boston Highlands, — the first 
for heifers ; and the latter fitted with all necessary apparatus 
for securing them while being vaccinated, and while lymph 
is being collected. I intend to continue the propagation 
of the two “ stocks ” mentioned above, from one heifer to 
another, and shall therefore, at all times, have them in dif- 
ferent stages of the disease ; and on any day, from three to 
four, p.m., shall be most happy to afford to any physician, of 
any school, opportunity for actual observation, and any in- 
formation on the subject which a long experience may be 
supposed to qualify me to give. I have, notwithstanding 
my not being a homoeopathist, borne repeated testimony to 
eluded, at least, two totally differing affections : one a local affection of the 
heels merely ; the other a constitutional disease, with a general eruption, like 
that of the exanthemata, in the mouth and over the general surface, and ob- 
served on the heels on account of the absence of hair. The first was much 
the more common affection : very frequently repeated experiments made with 
the fluid obtained from it were utterly futile ; and so Jenner’s doctrine fell into 
neglect, and even ridicule. The other and unknown disease, infinitely less 
frequent, occurring only rarely and at long intervals, as an epidemic in the 
horse tribe, and ignorantly included under the general term “ grease,” is the 
original of cow-pox, as has been, in late years, fully established by the obser- 
vations and experiments, at Alfort and elsewhere, by Bouley, and many other 
most competent observers. Jenner was a most careful observer and reasoner, 
a worthy disciple of his great master and loving friend, John Hunter ; and in 
this, his assertion of the origin of cow-pox, so long considered absurd, he is, 
after many years, proved not to have spoken idly. The mistake that he was 
supposed to have made had its origin, not in any fallacy of his, but in the 
ignorance of veterinary practitioners, who classed at least two entirely diverse 
diseases under one name. 14 
the great and peculiar care taken by homoeopathists to ob- 
tain the best possible vaccine lymph. I have had abundant 
evidence of this in the great number of that school, in all 
parts of the country, who have corresponded with me dur- 
ing the past twelve years. Knowing this, I have felt con- 
fident that your readers would feel an interest in an enter- 
prise by which, for the first time, authentic original non- 
humanized cow-pox lymph has been propagated on this side 
of the Atlantic, and offered to the medical profession of 
America.* 
I offer, therefore, no apologies for my topic, but must 
again ask your indulgence and that of your readers for the 
hasty, desultory manner in which it has been presented. 
HENRY A. MARTIN. 
Chairman of Committee on Vaccination, 
of American Medical Association. 
Note by the Editor. — We fully agree with Dr. Martin 
as to the special care taken by homoeopathic physicians in 
obtaining pure vaccine virus ; and we are sure our readers 
will be glad to know that a physician so painstaking and 
careful as Dr. Martin has secured virus from Jenner’s ori- 
ginal source. For several years, we have relied upon his 
vaccine virus with confidence and entire satisfaction ; but 
repeated trials of the “ new stock” have shown us its much 
* What has been advertised and extensively sold as “vaccine virus from 
kine,” and as “ cow-pox crusts,” is not cow-pox virus at all, but the result of 
“ retro-vaccination,” or the vaccination of heifers, &c., with the old humanized 
lymph. I believe, however, that I need say little more about this “ virus from 
kine : ” it has been extensively tested by the profession, and judging from a 
great many letters that I have received, and remarks that I have heard, the 
verdict is unanimous, and by no means favorable. 15 
greater activity and • perfection, and we especially recom- 
mend it to all physicians of our school. 
It would be easy to extend this pamphlet to something 
approaching the dignity of a “ tall ” octavo, by adding 
editorial comments both of the secular and medical press, 
criticising and ridiculing the narrow bigotry, the brainless 
violence and malice which characterize this attack on me. 
I do not intend any such publication at present. I know 
how much noise a very few fools can make in large assem- 
blies, and how very unfair it would be to judge a great and 
noble, if not always very liberal profession, by half a dozen 
blatant members of it. I therefore add only one of many 
comments on the action of the American Medical Associa- 
tion in regard to the ex-chairman of its committee on vac- 
cination. It is from the ablest medical editorial pen in this 
country, — that of the fearless editor of “ The New-York 
Medical Gazette,” the most influential and widely-circulated 
professional journal in America. 
“ The next noticeable piece of business was a motion to 
expel the chairman of one of the committees for the offence 
of having written a communication to a homoeopathic medi- 
cal periodical; an action which was characterized as ‘ an 
insult to every member of the association.’ The article in 
question we read at the time of its publication ; but, al- 
though we wondered at the editor’s extreme liberality in 
giving gratuitous insertion to so palpable an advertisement 
of the commodities which the writer had for sale, we were 
not sensitive enough to appreciate the personal insult con- 
veyed to ourselves ; nor do we now call to mind any clause 
of the code of ethics which forbids a medical writer to 16 
publish his dissent from homoeopathy in a homoeopathic 
periodical. Altogether undue importance has been given 
by noisy declamation in our own ranks to the Hahnemann- 
ian fallacy, which would probably have died of inanition 
long ago had not injudicious denunciation aroused popular 
interest in its behalf.” — New-York Medical Gazette, 
May 20, 1871.