Virus and Response 1856 Pt VI--- -"Report of the Special Committee of the House of Delegates"

Dr. John Henry Claiborne, Del- Petersburg

Art II. Report of the Special Committee of the House of Delegates on the Vaccine Agency. By J. Herbert Claiborne M.D. Delegate from Petersburg and Chairman of the Committee.*

 The committee to whom was referred the communication of the governor of this commonwealth relative to the conduct of the vaccine agent have had the same under consideration and have examined the documents appertaining to the subject the letters of certain persons in the county of New Kent complaining that the agent had distributed among them the matter of small pox instead of vaccine matter together with the communication of Dr. Patteson who was dispatched by the governor to New Kent to enquire(sic) into the case and other papers in the possession of the house germane to the whole and beg leave to submit the following report.

The committee have found it to be well established that Dr. A.E. Peticolas has been the unfortunate agent of dispensing to sundry persons in the county of New Kent matter which by inoculation has produced variola and varioloid instead of the vaccine disease Of this fact the agent himself is convinced and avers it in his candid and impartial communication to the governor. It remains then for the committee to enquire into the motives of the agent whether the distribution of this noxious matter was intentional on his part and into his official conduct whether it has been marked by sufficient carefulness and by intelligent precaution. 

In the total absence of any reason why the agent a state officer of high character and unimpeached integrity should intentionally lend himself to the fiendish act of spreading a fatal and loathsome disease among the people of this commonwealth the committee cannot conceive it possible that his motives should be impugned by any one. They deem it unnecessary to say more on this point. 

 In reference to the official conduct of the agent the committee believe that he has exercised as much caution and sagacity in the procurement of the matter which he distributed to the citizens of New Kent as he has done in all other cases when called on for matter And that he has in all other cases acted with care and prudence will appear from the fact that in a term of five year’s service in which he has supplied many thousand people with virus he has never before been accused of sending improper matter And moreover it will appear on an investigation of the mode in which Dr. Peticolas procures the vaccine scab that no man can do more to obtain and transmit that which is genuine.

- as reported in The Stethoscope and Virginia Medical and Surgical Journal Combined , April 1856



*This is different than the previous committee mentioned which was from the Virginia Senate.