HEALTH COLUMN

Otago Witness, Issue 1945, 4 June 1891, Page 37

HEALTH COLUMN

VACCINATION.

By F. A. J. De Oondb.

I have been asked to express an opinion on the subject of vaccination. In dealing rationally with this most important subject we have to take Vaccination versus Smallpox. There are those, and their numbers are not decreasing, who view compulsory vaccination, as at the present time conducted, with alarm, fearing that hereditary and dangerous diseases may be communicable thereby from child to child. This, to such, is a danger near at hand, while the danger of smallpox is remote. As is well known, there are anti-vaccination societies, the members of which are at work collecting evidence to support their views, which are that vaccination should not be compulsory, and in fact that the practice should be altogether abandoned, although how they arrive at such a conclusion I am at a loss to know. It must be borne in mind that the cry of anti- vaccination has been raised by a people who know not what smallpox is — the result of that very compulsory vaccination which they so soundly deride.

Before the days of .Jenner the ravages of smallpox in Europe were appalling, more than halt a million of the population dying annually of that vile disease alone. In London, of every 14 deaths one was attributable to smallpox. The " trade mark "of that cruel disease was visible in the street at every turn, for those bearing lifelong trace of the sufferings they had endured were numerous among the population. Happily, since the practice of vaccinating has become general those met in with scarred with smallpox form a very small portion of the community.

Whether our immunity from the scourge is wholly due to vaccination is, of course, a debateable subject. Smallpox, like all infectious and contagious diseases, has its specific microbe. The world of microbes, like the world of higher animal life, is, no doubt, subject to the ordinary laws 61 evolution. In that higher world we see, in the course of ages,, old forms passing away and new forms replacing, them. In some cases the older and gentler types of animals give place to others of fierce and terrible aspect, while in other cases the latter are replaced by more pleasing types. In a similar way — but, in the nature of the case, in an infinitely shorter duration of time — new forms of microbes will be developed : some of a baneful, others of a benign nature. From the very short time that the science of bacteriology has been before the scientific world, little or no light has been thrown upon the evolution of microbes. It is only by taking analogy for a quide — in Nature always a safe one — that we 1 can conclude that development must take plade naturally among these microscopic organisms. It is quite possible, then, that in Jenner's day the smallpox microbe was comparatively a new development, as the influenza microbe appears to be in our day ; and it is furthermore possible that by the present time the virulence of the smallpox microbe is on the wane, or at any rate, a process of development within the human constitution has fortified us against the attacks of the microbe. This I say is possible, and even probable, for we know that many diseases, such as measles, for instance, which are fraught with the direst consequences to savage nations, fall almost harmlessly upon civilised peoples. But it was not always so. There was a time when both measles and scarlet fever were dread scourges of the civilised portion of the human race. Now, however, in the natural course of development we have shaken ofE the direst consequences of both these diseases. It is not, therefore, altogether improbable that, to a certain extent, we have risen superior to the attacks of smallpox. Still we know that the disease has not lost its virulence to certain individuals, whatever may be the case among the community generally. In this connection I should like to know the history of the disease among the teeming millions of India and China : whether among them it is as greatly dreaded as it is amongst us, or whether its ravages are so dreadful. I somehow imagine smallpox is an older disease among Eastern nations than among Western, and that therefore the former are by Nature better fortified to resist its attacks.

The present position of the disease, then, being entirely a matter of doubt, we cannot, and should not, be allowed to make the dangerous experiment of putting the matter to the test by abandoning the practice of vaccination. It is the duty of the Government, I believe, as guardians of the public health, to insist upon the practice being carried out ; but coupled with bhis it is also a most sacred duty on the part of the Government to see that, while enforcing its behests, the guarantee is given absolutely to the parents of the children about to be operated upon that perfect immunity is secured from even the remotest possibility of communicating disease. Before the minds of pareuts can be wholly satisfied on this point the highly objectionable method of taking pus from the arm of one child to vaccinate another with must be relegated to the clumsy operations of a past age. Those who object to vaccination as at present performed would agitate with a better hope of success if thoy leagued themselves together to abrogate a clumsy system, which at any rate carries with it the suspicion of danger, and to substitute for it vaccination with lymph of guaranteed purity. It will always be difficult to maintain a constant supply of pure calf lymph w.hile the clumsy method of taking it direct from the cow is resorted to, but I can see no reason why cultivators of pure vaccine should not be made in the ordinary way so well known to bacteriologists now. If the Government undertook to supply a sufficient quantity of pure vaccine to the ou'ilic all opposition to submitting to tho ordual of vaccination would soon cease ; and, it is the bounden duty of the health authorities to see to this matter, for who knows the terrible consequences of the vile system uuiversally pursued, most especially in populous cities ? The thought is a most unpleasant one, and one which should no longer be forced upon parents who are naturally solicitous for the well-being of their offspring. In the name of equity and jus-

tice, and in the name of modem science, I protest against the disgusting system of vaccination at the present time thrust upon a long-Buff ering people.