INOCULATION.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18381, 6 February 1928, Page 9

INOCULATION.

To the Ecrilor. Sir,—lnstead of quoting statistics to show the merits or demerits of antityphoid inoculation, Mr Devereux tries to discredit them by saddling them with the responsibility of causing tuberculosis and other ills among soldiers. Some people’s lungs arc more resistant to tuberculosis than others, and the effect of the frightful hardships cf a w'ar campaign is to lower this natural resistance to consumption. Animals, as well as man, are subject to consumption. They always have been, and always will be, and there is no conclusive evidence to show a connection between serums and vaccines, and consumption. When serums and vaccines are put to the acid test of statistics, which is the only real test, they come through with flying colours, especially in such diseases as typhoid, diphtheria, hydrophobia, and snake bite, which all known drugs and medicines are useless as cures for the above diseases. In the Boer War typhoid killed more soldiers than the bullets of the Boers killed, but in the great war, where soldiers were all inoculated against typhoid, there w T ere fewer lost from this disease than in the South African war, notwithstanding, the fact that the soldiers were fighting in the most unhealthy places in the world, namely—Egypt, Palestine, Gallipoli and ' Mesopotamia. Before the discovery of anti toxin, diphtheria i n a virulent form killed as many as 50 per cent, while after its general introduction this figure was immediately reduced to a third. This is from statistics gathered .from all the large nations of Europe. As for vaccination, before its introduction, smallpox was common. Now it is practically extinct, so that compulsory vaccination is no longer necessary. Medical science has made more progress in tha conquest of disease by serums and vaccines than by drug* and medicines, which in the main are not real cures, but only palliatives. Anti typhoid inoculation, as a preventive of typhoid, and antitoxin, as a cure for diphtheria, have stood the test of twenty-five years, and up to the present no other remedy can compare with them. But this toxin-anti-toxin which caused the disaster in Australia is still in the experimental stage. It is used for the prevention, not the cure of diphtheria, and it has not yet proved itself.—l am. etc., TRUTH.