ANTI-VACCINATION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 10625, 21 March 1896, Page 8

ANTI-VACCINATION.

■ TO THE EDITOB. Sib,—l must apoligine to your anti-vaccina-tion correspondent if anything in either of my two letters has led Mm to Buppcss that I for one moment presumed to be of his " ialibre." From his letters I have little doubt as to his " calibre " in hia ova: estimation, an<i I think I i could pretty well tell what it is in other people's estimation.

I do not deny that antiseptics failed on the Emperor before Mackenzie treated him, bat your correspondent iwurw us, on the authority of others and himself, that they have generally bten a failure. Now, as I have shown to any unprejudiced mind that in the hands of Lister and Volkmann they weie a tremendous success, it only proves that it was not antiseptics that were a failure, but the men who used tbein, so far as antiseptics were concerned. Now, had Mackenzie, with his great ability, used them, he might have proved to be another Lister or Volkmain, in which case I am still justified i« suggesting, the speculation as to what might have been.

Now let us consider the grounds on which wa are asked to condemn antiseptics. As I havs said, in the hands of Lister and Volkmann, they were a great success. Against this we are asked to place the opinions of Laweon, Tait, and Mackenzie, men who, I understand from your correspocdent, refused to try them. There is an adage that an o^ince of fact is worth pounds of theory, bat here wo are asked by this man of calibre to upset pounds of fact by the nm&Uest homoeopathic dcse of theory. Sorely he does not think that all your residets are cranks and can't weigh evidence. I might tell him a abort story, both to illustrate my contention and also to show your readers the " calibre " of the men on whose authority your correspondent a»ks them to upset fact by theory. One he mentions was performing an operation—a difficult one I admit. After going to far, he stopped, and could go no further, when his assistant, who il a very clever young man, took the knife gently from his hand and finished the operation. Youi correspondent's authority, turning to him and naming him, said, " You're a brick."

Then he eays vaccination for smallpox is a failure. To epeak about other kinds, which his ■nom de plume shows is entirely an after thought, is the reductio ad absurdum, ai the profession has never adopted them and in no place in the world are they compulsory. A few facts may interest your readers on this so-called failure. Before vaccination was eompnlEory in Britain the death rate for smallpox was double that of any other European country where it was compulsory. Korosi showed that in 1887 the death rate from smallpox was: Unvaccinated, 87 per cent., vaccinated, 13 per cent., though it was calculated that only 5 per cent, of the population were not vaccinated. No case of smallpox hu occurred daring the last 50 years amongst attendant* at th« London Smallpox Hospitals^ who hare been revaccinated before entering on their duty; and, to giv« your readers an idea of what this meane, in 1867 there were 53,000 cases treated. In the epidemic in Edinburgh two year* ago only one Attendant died—sn oM man who held tome menial position in one of the hospitals. On inquiry being instituted it T?as fonnd that he wjs the only attendant who, by some oversight, had not been vaccinated before entering on his duties.

In conclusion, I would say that I am surprised that any men with an inch of the gentleman in him would defend his letter of the 22nd of February. His attack on the medical profession can only be characterised as so villainous chat even one of ParneKV "gutter sparrows" would have felt ashamed of it. Can your correspondont point to any pro- [ feesion which has done fo much for suffering ! humanity at it has ? Doctors have fcailt : hospitals for special diseases at their own expente; many of them, even among the moet famous, have devoted every spare minute in ' attending to the p'<or, expecting neither fee nor reward. Aye, even in email Duncdin, the doctors are .it the call of the. hospital authorities night and day. Can you, Sir, tell me where the ''big, fat fees" come from ? I con point to cases where those same Dunedin doctors have advised people to go into the hospital when bawl their only c&re been big fees they would hove advised them to stay oat,—« I am, &c, Dunedin, March SO. Botha. [This correspondence is now closed,—Ea., O. D. T.]