On ‘Dissolving Illusions’
I recently finished reading the 10th anniversary edition of Dissolving Illusions by Suzanne Humphries and Roman Bystrianyk.
What finally prompted me to read Dissolving Illusions - Diseases, Vaccines and the Forgotten History was Suzanne Humphries’ appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast on 23 March 2025.
The book had been on my reading list for some time - well, since about 2021, when I was holding out against the covid jabs while becoming increasingly convinced that not just the mRNA vaccines were a total con.
The more widely I read the more I came to understand that vaccines generally are at best useless and at worst damaging for the unlucky ones, in other words: a risk not worth taking.
Everyone has to make their own decision on this topic. Of course, babies don’t have that choice; their parents make it for them - like I once did for my children. While I was always somewhat sceptical, when it was my turn to make those decisions, as far as I recall my research didn’t go far beyond carefully reading the flyers available at health and maternity clinics. I was just as ignorant and taken in by the mainstream narrative on vaccines as the vast majority of parents, nurses and doctors.
Dissolving Illusions begins by describing living conditions in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries - and it’s a bleak picture indeed. The unsanitary ways of life back then allowed diseases to thrive. At the same time, medicine back then was a deadly concoction of the most ridiculous but firmly-held beliefs and practices. Think blood-letting, think the liberal use of toxic substances like mercury and lead.
The main tenet of the book is that the decline of much-feared diseases had everything to do with a vast improvement of living conditions and nutrition and the advent of sanitation - something that was evident as far back as the late 19th century.
The authors describes in great detail the history of diseases like smallpox, whooping cough, scarlet fever, diphtheria, polio and measles, and it concludes by reminding us of old and low-cost but effective remedies we can use to treat sickness.
Dissolving Illusions is permeated with quotes by doctors who understood early on that vaccination was not what it was made out to be by the medical establishment. Chapter 8 alone contains quotes from 27 doctors who spoke out against the smallpox vaccine.
The companion and reference guide that comes with the 10th anniversary edition is full of doctors’ quotes, stories of vaccination tragedies, and other documentation.
And given the rising sentiment against vaccination nowadays, much deplored by governments and the medical profession, I was fascinated to learn about the first anti-vaccination movement in England, culminating in a massive demonstration in Leicester in 1885.1
This works makes it clear that the practice of vaccination has always had critics, and for good reasons. Dissolving Illusions is a great companion to another must-read on vaccination: Turtles All the Way Down, which focuses more on how the vaccines in circulation today are based on flawed ‘science.’
If you’re unsure about vaccination, then these two books together provide plenty of information to help you make up your own mind.
On 23 March 1885 in Leicester, England, the anti-compulsory vaccination movement (led by the Anti-Compulsory Vaccination League) held a public meeting and a conference, attended by representatives from many towns around the country, with supportive messages from abroad. A number of doctors supported the movement, all acknowledging that the smallpox vaccine was unsafe and ineffective. However, at that time in England people who refused to have their children vaccinated were forced to pay a fine or go to jail.
Around lunchtime that day, Leicester saw a twenty to thirty thousand strong, spirited but peaceful protest march for the abolition of the Compulsory Vaccination Act (in force since 1853, and strengthened in 1867), with freedom banners on display, and even a gibbeted effigy of Dr Jenner, the inventor of the smallpox vaccination. Bands were playing protest songs, and the event ended by the burning of the vaccination Acts.
It took another seven years until the Vaccination Act of 1898 introduced a conscientious objection exception to the penalties. Compulsory vaccination ended in about 1947 with the National Health Service Act 1946.
Additional sources for the information in this footnote:
Leicester Daily Mercury - Monday 23 March 1885
Leicester Daily Mercury - Tuesday 24 March 1885
Loughborough Herald & North Leicestershire Gazette - Thursday 26 March 1885