'3:1 ais and ft :e I ton ($ aarb i a v HKD SVBRY FVENING. TUESDAY, AUGUST 16, 1898.

Inangahua Times, Volume XXIII, Issue 1290, 16 August 1898, Page 2

The Inangahua Times, and Reefton Guardian PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. TUESDAY, AUGUST 16, 1898.

It is a coincidence that the question of compulsory vaccination should be simultaneously occupbevention pying the attention better than of the Imperial and CURE- Colonial Parliaments. A cable received lately states that ths Home Government were defeated in the House of Lords by 40 to 38 on a clause in the Vaccination Bill recognising the conscientious objection ie Vaccination. A similar Bill is before the New Zealand Parliament, and in the Legislative Council ! ast week an animated debate took place on the subject. The Hon. Mr Jennings moved that the Government should introduce an amendment in the Vaccination Act with a view to strik ng out the compulsory clauses, and making vaccination optional. Dr Grace opposed the motion, and asserted that of all countries in the world, New Zealand was the best protected in the character of the vaccine used by medical men. The cultivation of pure calf lymph, which was now ea&ily procurable, had become an industry in Hawke's Bay, where it was subjected to the closest scientific control. He he'd that if anything was proved with mathematical certainty, it was that vaccination was both a preventive of smallpox &nd a modifier of the disease when contracted. He had every sympathy with those who objected to vaccination, but felt that their ide »s were formed through want of proper knowledge on the subject We quite agree with the latter view of the case, notwithstanding the objections raised by the opponents of vaccination, who contend that the reducion in that dreadful disease small pox at the present day is due less to the universal adoption of Dr Jenner's discovery than to the improved sanitary regu ations of mode-< m times, the prevention of over crowding, the improved drairage, the pentifui supply of water, and isolation of patients etc. Let the objectors 10 compulsory vaccination reflect for a moment what the dread ful consequences would be if it were left optional to parents to have their children vaccinated or not. The reasons adduced for the decrease of small pox might apply with equal force to other epidemics— measles, whoop n^ cough, scarletina, influenza—which stll continue to afflict humanity in spite of all the sanitary precautions and strict adherance to hygrenic rules. These diseases are sti'l accepted as inevitable, and in defiance of the progress made in medical science the counties bodi y ailments that flesh is heir to continues, as heretofore tobafffle the physican's skill. Sma'l pox alone has yielded to a discovery like other

discoveries accfjentaly made by Dr Jcnner in I7sß. He noticed tha a certain disjaselo which cows wete liable was frequtnty con'racted by milkers, and am|ng the great dairy farms in Gloucestershire, there whs a popular beiief ttmt no person who had had the cow pox could afterwards take thefemall pox. This having exciied tne attention of Dr Jame's he satisied,himself of the truth oi it by inopfifating with srruU pox virus severll individuals who had had t s .e cow. pox, and so conceived the great iiea of propogating the latter diseasejrom one individual to another and so preventing in all cases the dangeious distemper of small pox. Pridr to this period nearly 90 per cere of the population were pitted morel or less, with the disfiguring tracesjof thic loathsome and dangerous contagion, as perU lous to life as it Was destructive to beauty. NutarallyHhe inventor of a discovery that so ateatly reduced the risk of contagidn, and almost eradicated the dislase was regarded somewhat in the {light of a saviour although manydapp rooted prejudices hid to be overcome before the practic • of vacpnation became general. Now th* same prejudices are being revived? and endeavou s are being made to abo ish the com pulsory clauses iuf the Act, one argument brought jforward in New Zealand being 'hat in a new, and sparsely populated] counry the^danger of contiactin^ small pox is reduced to a minimum. But, as before remarked, why is me dangei of contracting measles anfd other epidemics not reduced in the Same ratio ? The argument is unanswerable, and of two evils it is surely . advisable to choose the least, tlf. one disease artificially producec has been proved to be in ninj cases out of ten an unfai ing antidote tp another disease far more unsight y and more disastrous in its effects what possible grounds can there be for opposition ? If, as anti-y.a^cinators contend, infants are exposed to the danger of contracting other horrib'e diseases which are introjuct-d into th c system during . the process of vaccination, such da ngercan be eliminated by using cal^lymph instead of arm to farm vs ccination. And legis'ation cou d easi y ensure this by imposing a heavy j enaity not only on any vaccinato:,. who would deviate from this n [c, but a so on any parent who wi pld permit the vaccine to be take? Wrom a child. The experience of aH'cenlt'wry should convince the most | sceptical that Dr Jenner's remedy fhas everything to recommend it, anfsiew will deny that the faint mark^&f three $us--tules on the arm, i&rd smaitl p?!ce J to pay for almost a^solu^e immunity from a diseasel almost as teririble as leprosy. 1 j.