Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1881-05-26
Thursday Morning, May 26. 1881.
VACCINATION.

When DIR. Jenner first tried to give man
kind the benefit of his great discovery he en-
countered intense prejudice and violent op-
position. Eminent physicians protested
against vaccination. George the Third was
supplicated to suppress the practice after it
had made some headway. An anti-vaccina-
ton society was formed and an appeal made
to the public to second ''efforts in support
ing the cause of humanity against cow-pox
injuries" Society was warned against the
danger of introducing 'beastly Diseases "
which were likely to be transmitted to pos
terity for ages 1t was asserted that the
mental character would be imbruted, and in
stances were related of persons, after vaccin-
-ation, coughing like cows AMI believing
like bulls" Theological objections were
raised. 1t was argued that smallpox is a
visitation from God, but the ,cowpox is pro-
duced by presumptuous, impious men; the
former is Heaven ordained, the latter is a
daring and profane violation of our holy re-
ligion." The practice was stigmatized ''as
gross violation of religion morality, law and
humanity" Instances occurred in which
persons who had submitted to vaccination
were mobbed
Within late years, strange to say, some of
the early objections to vaccination have been
revived, and the opposition to the practice,
especially in England, is quite powerful.
That it should be SO is nothing less than as
tonishing in view of the facts of the case, but
SO it is. The recent talk against vaccina-
ton has brought to it's defense two eminent
1~l-
city and DR.. Carpenter of London, and their
testimony is well worth looking at. DR..
Flint declares that if saving human lives be
a criterion of the benefcent fruits of dis
covery, there is none in the history of man
kind which will bear any comparis on with
that of vaccination. In England. in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, seven
to nine per cent. of all deaths were attributa-
BILE to smallpox. In Berlin, from 1888 to
1897, one-twelfth of the total mortality was
due to the same. Junker computes the
deaths occurring from smallpox in the year
1876, among the seven million inhabitants of
Prussia, at twenty-six thousand six hundred
and forty-six In the eighteenth century,
thirty thousand died annually of smallpox in
''From smallpox and love but few remain
free" In 1S49 it was computed that vacci-
nation during the half century it had been
used had preserved from death by smallpox
more than six millions of human beings. DR..
Flint ascribes opposition to vaccination to
ignorance and credulity, and says: 'Vacci-
nations and revaccinations should be made
everywhere compulsory. If they who resist
their enforcement were alone the victims of
the disease, society could afford to let them
die as the fool dieth.' The question is
whether society shall suffer on account of
their folly. The right of society to protect
itself in this matter is as clear as that of
placing under restraint q homicidal maniac"
DIR. Carpenter holds that the present doubts
concerning the efficacy of vaccination are
due to three causes-frst the en- tire igno-
rance of the present generation, save the few
who have specially studied the medical histo
ry of the last century to the ravages of
smallpox before the introduction of vaccina-
tion by Jenner at the beginning of the pres
ent second, the exaggerated claims to COM
plete protection originally advanced by the
advocates of vaccination and, third, the
strangely illogical idea by which the anti-vac-
cinationists of the present time are possessed,
that what is not complete protection is no
protection at all. Those opposed to vaccina-
tisn DIR. Carpenter says, are bound to
count for the broad fact that though at least
nineteen-twentieths of the British popula
ton have never had the smallpox in its mild
est form, the number who suffer in the Sc
verest smallpox epidemics of modern times
is a very small fraction of those who were
affected by them in the corresponding period
of the last century, when the population of
England was scarcely third of what it is now.
and the great bulk of it was protected by
having been previously smallpoxed. DR..
Carpenter admits that rev lccination is ne
cessary and that the protective effect of
early vaccination may die out. That eowpox
and smallpox are essentially the same diseases
DR.. Carpenter has no doubt Second attacks
of smallpox did occur in old times, just as
second attacks of measles and scarlatinn do
now. He thinks that if it were possible to
enforce not only vaccination in infancy but
revaccination at the age of eighteen, smallpox
might almost be exterminated
Those of our readers who still have doubts
about vaccination would do well to make an
examination for themselves of what it has
done for the human race. Most of them, we
doubt not, would be speedily converted into
enthusiastic supporters of the beneficent
practice.