Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1846-02-12
VACCINATION.

ton Evenang .Nesos, designed to impress
upon the citizens of that city the necessity
and importance of vaccination, is worthy
the consideration of all classes of citizens,
whether they be residents of town or coun-
try:
When more than half century ago DR..
Jenner discovered the preventive power of
Vaccination, his attempts to introduce it
into practice met. at first, with the usual
fate of all discoveries. He was ridiculed,
revlled, and denounced, by his Medical bre-
thren. His reputation as Physician, and
his character as man of veracity, were
both impugned and it was only by the
most patient perseverance, and untlrng as
siduity in overcoming all obstacles which
opposed him, that he was at length enabled
to establish the truthfulness of the position,
that Cowpox engrafted into the human sys-
tenn by the process of Vaccination was a.
certain preventive Of that most loathsomeI
of diseases, the Small Pox. But when the
doctrine became at length established, andI
the practice of Vaccination extended over
Europe and America, the necessary result,
one indeed foreseen by Jenner himself, was
that the Small Pow was almost erased from
the list of ellis which flesh is heir to-" Our
own city is an evidence of this fact. Charles
ton was, during the last century, frequently
subject to invasions of this disease, which
proved a fatal scourge to its inhabitants
Since the introduction of Vaccination, inI
1901, we think, Small Pox has scarcely
been known among US.
But this happy exemption is not, we fear,
to continue. Already new disease, which
from its resemblance to Small Pox has been
called "Varioloid," and which we have no
doubt has arisen from impure and defective
vaccination, has been added to the maladies
which make our bills of mortality and
within month or two the small pox has
appeared at different points of our Cont
nent, and made fearful havoc in some of
our largest cities, such as New York, Bos-
ton, Philadelphia, and Baltimore.
This is an alarming and unexpected visi-
tation, and it is time that the attention of
the public, and more particularly the medi-I
cal police of our city and State, should bel
directed TO it. For we must anticipate the
time when this long-dormant scourge of
the human race, now awakened from its
lethargy, will stretch its desolating arms
over our own homes, and throw its gloom
about our own domestic circles. No sys-I
tenn of non-intercourse can impede the pro-
gress or debar the entrance Of this most
contagious of all contagious, and when
once among US, it will be too late to seek
Tor precautionary measures.
We have no doubt ourselves that the re-
appearance of small pox among us is ow-
ing to the careless and unscientfc manner
in which vaccination for the last fifteen or
twenty years has been practised. Originally.
this important operation, eminenlly lmpor-.
tant in the results it is intended to produce,
was confided to the care of physicians. But
it is now performed by old women and
other uneducated persons, who very saga
ciously suppose that for its perfection no.
thing more is required than to Undue the.
point of needle with something which
they suppose to be vaccine virus and thrust
it some three or four times into the arm of
the patient, and as soon as an equal number
OF sores have appeared, the business, in
their opinion, is completed
But there are several prerequisites to
render the operation perfect and eficacous
as preventive.
l. The virus must be good. 1t must not
have passed too often through the human
system. 1t is now believed by medical men
that after certain number of removes from
the cow the virus begins to deteriorate, and
4 IS to hou
virus, to the useful animal which supplies
it. But if unskilful persons continue to
use the virus after its deterioration, though
1t may, by its irritating character as TO-
reign substance, produce a sore upon the
arm, that sore will not be genuine vaccine
pustule, and the patient will in no respect
be guarded from an attack of small pox,
should he be placed within the influence of
its contagion.
2. The person from whom the matter is
taken must be in good health. Diseases of
the skin, especially, entirely corrupt the
character of the vaccine pustule and render
it incapable of generating cow-pox in ano-
Their subject.
3. The patient who is to be vaccinatedI
must also be in health, or the vaccinationI
will not produce its proper influence on the
system.
A. The virus, though it be genuine, and
taken from and inserted into healthy arm,
will not be successful unless the 2ustue
run through its proper course. And here
is one of the great causes of the inertness
of modern vaccination. The illiterate vac
cinators to whom we allude, thinking, in
the profundity of their ignorance, that one
cannot have too much of good thing, are
-.axa.allxz In tho habit Of m q Linn thron o..