VACCINATION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 214, 3 September 1908, Page 4

VACCINATION.

THE SYSTEM DEFENDED. ■ Frank Morton writes to a eontcmporary as follows on the above subject;— Twenty or thirty years ago, ill the days of the admittedly bad ariu-to-ann vaccination system, the anti-vaccinationists had at least a sort of colour for their heresy, although even arm-to : arm vaccination was better than no vaccination at all; but in 1908, with clean-.lymph the invariable rule, the heresy is quite preposterous foolishness. Listen to Mr. Laurenson: "An Act which was a dead letter should not be allowed to remain on the statute-book. He knew a member of Parliament who had lost one •-.! his children through vaccination. Aft,:vaccination the child suffered from suppurating sores, the arms withered and eventually the unfortunate child died. There was no outstanding danger of an outbreak of small-pox in a clean country like this." That is precisely the sort of talk one heard in Tasmania a few years ago. But something happened. There fell upon the city of Launceston a most 1 beastly, vile, and abominable epidemic I of small-pox. Many of the anti-vaceina-tionists proved the purity of their convictions by being vaccinated vfitho.it delay. Many others were detected and vaccinated by force. The children of ail the schools in the colony were vaccinated by force. But in Launceston the epidemic took root and .grew vicious and strong. 1 saw abominable things there. The horror and sheer [wickedness of this dread disease can barely be suggested in a decent newspaper. Launceston trifled with it, making concessions to influential and fashionable persons. Weeks passed, deaths multiplied, and still the epidemic kept and extended its grip. Then the Government, in desperation, sent to Australia for a man, and the man came. He was a modern man, and when people talked anti-vaccination to him. or sought to awe him with their " conscientious scruples" in favour of mediaevalism and the grey slime, Ik' only grinned in his beard and did his duty. The fashionable and influential persons were turned out of their comfortable burrows and sent to recover «-r die in an isolation hospital, which was not comfortable. Vaccination was carried on wholesale. Infected quarters were drenched with disinfectants. Infected houses were destroyed. In an almost incredibly short time, the modern man got his foot on the neck of the epidemic and choked it. There are still ' anti-vaccinationists in Launceston; but most of them have been vaccinated. 1 was vaccinated two or three times, because a defect in a by-law made it ncces-1 sary every time I went to Launceston during the first weeks. My children, who had been vaccinated before, were vaccinated again. Thousands of people of all ages and conditions were vaccinated. Here, then, is a test ease for (.lie cranks. Here, in one colony, at one time, all the school children and many of the adults were vaccinated. I never heard of trouble arising from any one of those multitudinous vaccinations. If trouble did arise in certain cases, it would be unfortunate, but it would in no way affect the main issue. It is better that one should die than that a (housand should be endangered. Cases relied on by the cranks never have any convincing 'quality, anyhow. If a vaccinated child dies of anything], from croup to a railway accident, the cranks invariably blame, vaccination. 1 knew one man who died after vaccination in Unhurt, and honesty compels me to admit t lie facts. But'lie never complained of the vaccination, he was eighty years of age, and during sixty years he had drunk every day more whisky than is good for any man. When a man exceeds his proper allowance by a quart a day, he must lake the risks, even in a country like Tasmania.