Doubt had been cast on the existence…

Doubt had been cast on the existence of germs and the efficacy of vaccines in two articles written by Charles Creighton for the Encyclopædia Britannica on pathology (1885) and vaccinations (1888).

Following extensive research, Creighton had concluded that vaccination constitutes “a gross superstition.

Widely condemned for these views by leading medical journals, he continues to express his unorthodox and unpopular views in The Natural History of Cowpox and Vaccinal Syphilis (1887) and Jenner and Vaccination (1889).

Born in Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, the oldest son of Alexander Creighton and Agnes Brand Creighton, Charles had received a scholarship to attend the University of Aberdeen and received his M.A. in 1867, then enrolled as a medical student and passed his M.B. and M.S. exams in 1871.

After graduation, he had studied for a brief time with Karl von Rokitansky in Vienna and Rudolf Virchow in Berlin, earning his M.D. in 1878.

After returning from Berlin in 1872, Creighton had worked in London as a hospital registrar until his appointment in 1876 as demonstrator of anatomy at Cambridge University.

Over the next five years he wrote his first book, Bovine Tuberculosis in Man (1881) and published several articles on anatomy in the Journal of Anatomy and Physiology.

In 1879 he became co-editor of this same journal.

Then, for unknown reasons, Creighton had quit a promising career at Cambridge and returned to London in 1881.

For the remainder of his life, he will work independently on his studies and live alone.

His most significant work, A History of Epidemics in Britain, will take several years to complete and the two volumes will be published in 1891 and 1894.

It will be recognized as an important contribution to the study of medical history.

Some of his other writings, particularly those concerning vaccination, have not been not so well received.