Morning journal and courier., 1882-01-10
Tuesday Morning. Jan. 10, 1882.
VACCINATION.

| Dr. Lewis A. Sayre, the we'll known and
 eminent New York physician, is not one Of
 those who, right in the presence of the small
 pox, are talking against the old and well
 tried blessing of vaccination, and he is quite
 indignant that anybody should attempt to
 shake the public belief in it's efficacy. He
 said to Now York reporter: 'Do you
 know I have often thought itwould be good
 thing if the city were scourged to the heart
 with that disease (smallpox) to teach the
 people their duty? Nothing else will do it. Nothing. A lot of these new fangled phan- tom physicians have been telling them
 pretty stories, and the foolish people have
 taken them for truth. They will find too
 late they are like the practitioners-phan- toms. The man who stops to discuss vac
 cination with any other view than to insist
 on it emphatically is an idler."
 In support of his position Dr. Sayre cites
 some interesting facts. In 1927 most ma lignant and fatal epidemic of smallpox ragged
 in Philadelphia. Drs. Cox, Condie and
 Meigs, of the committee of the Medical So-
 ciety of that city, report that but one well
 ascertained death from that disease among
 80, GOO vaccinated persons came to the knowl-
 edge of the committee. Drs Bell and Mitch
 ell report that of 24S cases of variola and
 varioloid treated at the smallpox hospital 155
 were unprotected by vaccination, of whom S5 died, were iuoculated, of whom 3 died, and 63 had been vaccinated, of whom but a single one died. Previous to the use of vac cination there died annually of smallpox out of every million in Westphalia during the years 1776-8O, 2,643 and during thirty-fve years, from 1S16-5O (after vaccination was adopted) the annual death rate from the same disease was only IA. In Copenhagen, the deaths by smallpox were SIPS annually for every million for many years and after vac cination it 286. In Berlin for twenty five years previous to the general use of vaccination the annual death rate by small pox was 3.422, and for forty years subse- l quently it has been only 876. In Sweden for twenty-eight years preceding the use of vaccination out of every 1000, 900 of the | population there died from smallpox annu- l ally 2,O5O, and for forty years after | the use of vaccination the annual death rate | by smallpox wes only 15S of every LOGO, 900. | A table prepared for the British Parliament | shows that out of 22,OOO, 900 people in Eu- | rope there died annually of smallpox previ- | ous to vaccination 62, ,9G1, and from the same | number of people there have died annually | since vaccination was adopted only 7,403, | thus saving annually the lives of 55, ,459 per sons, besides the relief from physical suffer- ing which those who are afflicted with this terrible scourge must necessarily endure.
 Dr. Sayre thinks revaccination is necessary. He would have such laws passed as would enforce efficient and universal vacci- nation, to be repeated as often as every five years until the age of twenty-one. Concern ng the enforcement of such a law he says Tn all the penal institutions and public hos pitfalls and the State police, iremen, State militia and departments of the government he law could be enforced without much trouble or difficulty. Every family on engag- ng servant, every merchant on hiring a Jerk, every captain on shipping a sailor, avery manufacturer on employing mechan- c, every officer on enlisting a recruit, in fact 'very man and woman in the State who em- ,loys or controls other men, women chil- lren ought to compel the applicant and those lnder them to exhibit certificate of vaccina- ion properly dated, and this could be car jed through all the different ramifcations of ociety. The attention of the community would thus be fastened on this important ubject and it's beneficial effects would soon 'e so apparent as to render no laws necessary or it's continued enforcement"
 Dr. Sayrs has done good service in thus alling attention to the benefits of vaccina- ion. The evidence in its favor is over- and those who are inclined to Ioubt it's efficacy will do well to examine the acts before giving their adherence to a heory that seems likely to do considerable amage.