ANTISEPTIC SURGERY AND VACCINATION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 10619, 14 March 1896, Page 3

ANTISEPTIC SURGERY AND VACCINATION.

TO THE EOITOB.

Sib,—Pleate giro «ac apace to-bell yonr con respondent " Edina " I hare no use for men a£ his calibre —i.e., m«n who deny facts and then submit theoretical conjectures.

We know the late Emperor Frederic* was1 tm a long time in the hands of German profecEori who observed all the tales of the antiseptic school, and jet the disease made rapid strides. Now, f013999th, the late Sir Morell Mackenzie, who was called in almost at the last moment, is charged with blandering because he did not boil or pickle the spatala he used, »9 bis German confreres had been doing before him, with results— nil.

Proceeding, let me repeat, too, I want tfc« death rate (to-day) after major operations in both the public and private hospitals of New Zealand. Bat particularly do I want the death rate in private hospitals, for this reason—the operators in private hospitals never change, where** the operators are changed in the pubHl hospitals, with the result that in the lastnamed the death rare frequently takes ft decidedly upward tendency. Less frequently there is a tendency hi the opposite'direction.; nevertheless, antiseptics are in me all the time, plainly showing the death rate depends upon operative skill and teoiroiijue rather than upon so-caHed antiseptics, as " Bdioa " would hava us believe. This statement. Sir, can he proved by referring to the public hospital reports covering, say, a period of five yean.

A word now to the wise: Never declare you do not know where to get figures when they aia under yoor nose.

The vaccination question has been carried to the redicctio ad absurduni conclusion by fcllfl inoculatiouisK Here is a specimen, arid noil an old one, of what they have to say: " A daj will come when in Berlin, in London, in Paris & mao will not die of diphtheria, of typhoid, of scarlet fever, of eholora, es of tuberculosis any more than be dies is these cities to-day of tag venom of snakes or of (ha bite of wolves."

.Contrast the above with the following. Draw your own eovcluMona, and then S3y< " Bdina," whether there bo or be not the remotest chance of jjjouui&tion ever doing what its advocates claim- for it: —" Pastsur's ifopathjo inoculation for the grape vinerdisease, phylloxera, so ttramphaatly hem-Med aod extensively tried in France, wu a confessed fsflare, and all tbs vineyards ia which it was used had to b« uprooted in order !o get rid of it And his inoculation cure for the dread sheep diseasa char bo n rotted sll the flocks ia which it vntt tried, one Russian nobleman losing 8000 animals by it."

In like manner the strong statements and claims bat negative beneficial resnlte in xegaid to his hydrophobia proventive (he never e!aiming it was a curs) in the oama light of experience have brought it into disrepute. The balance sheet of this great acd lamentable ecienttfio bankruptcy may cow be drawn op to show that not only doss the inoculation fail to prevent hydrophobia, bill; Actually causes it. His Paris institute bad 270 deaths up to last Jane, and an investigator has name, date, and history of each ; and this after Pasteur himself declared in the "New Review" (November, 1889) that " 80 to 85 of every 100 persons bitten are in no danger."

Many references, quotations, and figures could be cited, bat ejwca forbids, unless it be* comes necessary to criticism at another time, These, however, may be used " an a guarantee of good faith " : Dr Bell Taylor, Nottingham, speaks of the treatment as " a most extraordi" ni\ry delusion " ; Professor Yon Friseh, Vienna, writes: "The great hopes which the medical world had placed in Pasteur's discovery hava not been reafood"; and Dr F. BL Dolap, editor of the " Provincial Medical Journal," in his book, " Pasteur and Babies," f«y« : "No* only does Pasteur not protect from the'disease, but he bas added a new terror hy the introdne> tion of paralytic rabies." The French term iae this new trouble is "rage (hi tabercttoire^" a disease different from that which follows dog bite, and is the result of inoculation.

The failure of the Baffidiie inoculation, for cholera (now interdicted in India by the Government) and the fiasco of Koch's tubes* culosis cure, Brown-Bequard's "elixir of Kfe/* Jenner's vaccination, and other similar v cures" only prove and add emphasis to Professor Ooo«faanb3>s declaration : " The system oi the prevention or core of diseases of the tunnaa race by animal inoculation is fallacious and has had its day." To be cossisteat with the others the next to go must be "the new diphtherik cure" anti-toxin, and that has recurred soma hard knocks of late.

Finally, let me point out to " Edina" then is on sale to-day a song entitled " I don't want to play in ysur back yard," the words of which he'd do well to Btudy before he uses Iho terra infra dig, towards »ny correspondent favoured with space in your colmnns, seeing you,-Sirj act in the capacity of censor.

Apologising for trespassing again, on you valuable space,—l am, &c ,

Defend Yourself and Yotr Ptmvi FEOM THE VAecINMOB.

Darsedin, March 9.

While hi Chicago, Mr Chides L. K*hitx> « prominent shne merchant of Dcs Moine% lowa, had quite a serious time of it. Be toofc such a severe cold that he could hardly talk c* navigate, but the prompt use of Chsmbedain'k Cough Bemedy cured him of his cold so quickly that others at the hotel who had bad poldl followed his example, and half a dozen perron* ordered it from the nearest drug store. They were profuse in their thanks to Mr Kahler foV telling them how to core a bad cold so aoictij, I'm: s*le br all Icadinc etamitts-