The Portland daily press., 1885-11-28
VACCINATION.
A Circular from the State Board OF
Health


We find that the correct answer to this
question is not as clearly in the minds of the
people generally as it should be, therefore
these facts are given. Almost one hundred
years ago Jenner discovered that when a
person is inoculated with COW pox virus so
as to have COW pox, the attack OF the lighter
disease gives immunity from the much more
dangerous disease small pox. The announce
ment of his discovery was met with incredu-
lily. Jenner had vaccinated boy eight
years old who had never had small pox. He
said to the incredulous medical men of the
day: ST you think the boy is not protected
from small pox give him the small pox if
you cam They did not shut him up with
small pox patients, but they used surer
method. They inoculated the boy with the
small box virus. 1t did not take. They
tried it agaiu with the same results, and re-
peated it many times carefully until the in
oculation had been done with twenty fail
ures They then had to acknowledge that
the boy was protected.
The most common popular fallaey in this
matter is that vaccination does not prevent
one from having small pox, but only makes
the disease milder if one gets it. The truth
is that when successfully done and not done
too long ago, the protection is almost abso-
lutely perfect.
In Brussels, out of more than 10000 chill
dren vaccinated in 1S69-70, not one case was
reported as having been attacked by the
terrible epidemic of small pox which swept
over Europe soon after DR.. Warlomont,
who reported these facts, says that he has
made number of appeals for information as
to cases of small pox after vaccination with
the animal virus, but so far without result.
Others have made similar requests and Of
fered large rewards for such information,
but without avail.
In a severe epidemic of small pox, which
swept over the island of Hayti in 1872 DR..
Terres says although tending two or three
hundred severe cases every day, neither he
nor any of his family or servants took the
disease thirteen persons in AID, their only
protection being successful vaccination. The
scholars and teachers of three schools Give
hundred in alb were successfully vaccinated,
and only one occurred. Dr. Terres states
that not a single death occurred among vac
cinated persons.
Dr. Dunn, of Minnesota, contrasts the his
tories of two families, one yaccinated and
the other not 'tThe families are of the
same size living few miles apart. The
carelessness or parsimony neither family
had been vaccinated. The small poX enters
one, still they take no preventative meas
ures. The disease has the same scope as it
had in the days before, vaccination and 1t
quickly shows itself to be the same old pest
that it was before the immortal Jenner
robbed it of its terrorS OF the nine unpro-
tected persons it rapidly destroys three,
ruins an eye for yet another, and scars the
other five, four of them girls, in frightful
way.
''The other family of ten hear that they
have been exposed to small pox, not aware
that the disease has already been for ten
days operating in the system of one of its
members. They are Vaecinated with reliable
bovine lymph. Two days later one OF the
ten comes down with small pox, which runs
a mild course. They are all daily and night
ly exposed to the disease, their vaccinations
work well and not one of them Is attacked. =
DR.. Henry Tomkins, Medical Superinten-
dent Of the Fever Hospital belonging to the
Manchester Royal Intirmary at MonSall, in q
paper read at Owens College, said
"The most striking of all evidence is, per-
haps, that derived from the small poX hos
pitfalls themselves. Here the protective in
fluence of vaccination is seen and proved in
a manner beyond all cavil. At Highgate,
during an experience of forty years, no
nurse or servant having been re-vaccinated
has ever contracted the disease, and evidence
of the same character | can myself bring for
ward for during the whole time that have
had charge of the fever hospital more than a
thousand cases of small poX have passed
under my care; yet no servant, nurse, porter,
or other person engaged there, has, after re-
vaccination, ever taken it, though exposed
daily to infection in its most concentrated
form. Again, among all the students who,
during the past two years, have attended the
hospital for clinical instruction, not one has
suffered, all having been reyaccinated before
being permitted to enter the small poX
wards,
DR.. O. W. Wight, Health Officer of De-
troit, says: During the winter of 1882,
when small pox was epidemic, | allowed
fourteen well persons to go to the pest house
in the city of Detroit, who wished to take
charge of other members of their families re-
moved there on account Of the disease. All
of them were vaecinated at the time of going
Not one Of them had even light attack of
ra4iaaaj4r
of unvaccnated persons exposed IN the
midst of the sick and lying to concentrated
contagion without the least injury, will
then listen patiently to their arguments.
Facts and cases by the hundred throwing
the weight of their testimony all in the same
direction, could be culled from sanitary and
medical literature, but these few sufficiently
show that vaccination protects & person
from catching small pox. If the vaccina-
ton is imperfect, or done many years ago., it
still may be worth much in mitigating the
disease and turning it into 'yarioloid."