OUR READERS’ OPINIONS

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXVI, Issue 3996, 29 July 1913, Page 5

OUR READERS’ OPINIONS

THE SMALLPOX SCARE. [TO THE EDITOR] gir,-—The so-called smallpox disease now raging in our midst like an irritated mosquito has given provocation to alarm our grandmothers, increase our anger and thirst, and generally plav the deuce with our trade, and certainly as concerns Gisborne, the da plage to trade and reputation is eonsideiable indeed. That the present outbreak is merely chiekenpox is now_ realised generally, except by a few of the hair-brained folk who are ready to Hy inti a panic the moment anybody give them the faintest hint that there is anything out of the common aloot. People are being vaccinated in hundreds, and the doctors are reaping a good harvest out of the business, hut when the passing madness of the hour is over some people with sore arms are going to be mighty angry. Of course we all know who is having the laugh over the present hoax. A recent writer on the subject of wholesale vaccination of the people sums up the medical opinion with regard to the use of cowpox lymph in a striking fashion. The original doctrine, he declares, was that one vaccination protected for life. By 1801 this had been modified to admit of exceptions. By 1809 it was held that vaccination gave protection equal to that of the disease itself. By 1818 medical authority held that _it did not protect but tended to modify the disease. By ISGS it hail come to bo recognised that vaccination must bo repeated frequently to be effective. By 1877 it was regarded as useful to modify the disease if the operation was frequently repeated after a certain age. By" 1831 it was declared to be open to question whether the decrease in smallpox was duo to the vaccine nr to other causes. Since then anti-vaccination societies have been so busy showing the danger and uselessness of the whole business that practically every civilised country allows children exemption from the operation of the various vaccination laws if a protest,is entered hy the parents. Add to this the fact that 26 different diseases —some of them of the gravest kind —have been traced to vaccination, and you know why I. refuse to bare my arm to the lancet without extreme provocation.—l am, etc., “STUDENT.”