“Vaccination is a barbarous practice and one of the most fatal of all the delusions current in our time.”
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Probable attribution
This saying is widely associated with Mahatma Gandhi, but the attribution is not supported by a reliable primary source.
Likely origin: Mahatma Gandhi, 'A Guide to Health' (1921), section on infectious disease/vaccination.
About this quote
This reflects an early-1900s natural-hygiene belief and a deep distrust of state-enforced medicine. Modern science firmly contradicts it — vaccines are among the safest, most effective tools ever developed. Read it as a historical conviction, and a reminder that strong belief is not the same as evidence.
When to use it
- Refusing a doctor's proven treatment because it feels unnatural, then reconsidering after seeing the actual survival data.
- Distrusting all modern medicine, then slowly learning to tell genuine risks apart from rumor.
- A community that rejects a public-health measure and later sees, in the numbers, how much it helped.