The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1885-05-15
VACCINATION GONE MAD.
Remarks on the Prevention of the
Spread of Cholera.
To the Editor of THE HERALD.

To the Editor of THE HERALD.
In your issue of the 18th yoI
quote from the New York Herald th,
statement that at Valencia, Spain,
doctor. after finishing lecture to
room full of Spanish physicians. etc.
proceeded to inoculate eighteen of hi,
brother leeches with the cholera bacilli
After stating that, you add: 1.-THE
| effectiveness of vaccination as pre-
yentive of small pox has passed beyond
the point of intelligent dispute. TIE
only argument that the anti-vaecl-
nationists can bring is that there is
danger of inoculating other diseases. y
1t is hardly to be expected that the
busy editor of secular journal can
keep track of all that is going on in the
field of medicine. Hence your COM
ment might be overlooked if it
were not misleading. 1t is really
not true that the effective
ness of vaccination has passed beyond
the point of intelligent dispute. In the
past few years the whole subject of vac
cination has once more come under re-
view. It is even questionable if, in the
days of Jenner, when there was much
excitement on the subject and sharp
conflict between the advocates and OPP
ponentS of vaccination, more was pre-
scented pro and con than has been writ
ten and printed in the last five years.
Recently, the well known naturalist,
Alfred Russell Wallace, LII. D., second,
perhaps only to Erasmus Darwin, has
issued a pamphlet proving vaccination
to be both useie-S and dangerous, bas-.
ing his arguments on forty-fiYe years of
registration statistics. The pamphlet is
published by f. w. Allen, Ave Maria
Lane, London, Great Britain. at the price
of only 3d., English money, conse-
quently, may be easily obtained by
those of your readers who may be inter
ested in the subject.
There is a large and growing anti
vaccination society in London, and
among its members are some of the
leading men of the medical profession,
as well as members of Parliament and
scientists. Within the past year or two
a society has been organized in this
country in opposition to vaccination,
and among its leading members are
Professor Alexander Wilder, NJ. D., and
Professor r. A. Gum, N, D., who bring
many ctker arguments to bear against
vaccination than simply the danger of
other diseases. Alfred
Russell Wallace shows by his pamphlet
that the small pox death rate is actually
less for the unvaccinated than for the
in infants, and equal for all
the higher ages. He proves by official
records that small pox has not de-
creased so, much and so steadily as
typhuS and other fevers; that
the diminution oil small pox NOR
tality comedies with a diminished in
stead of increased efficiency of official
Further. that the best
available records show that the proper
ton of deaths to smallpox cases is the
same now, although large proportion
Of the population are vaccinated, as it
was century ago before vaccination
was discovered-18 per cent. During
ali this time there has been progress
siye increase in deaths by syphilis, can
GER. pyamia. skin diseases and con-
of the bowels
While presenting these facts, do not
wish to be counted among the anti-vac-
/ can only say that from
my investigations during the past few
wears nv confidence in it is greatly
shaken. The strongest argument to-
Ijay in favor of vaccination that can be
forward by the yaccinationists
IS the fact. or the alleged fact,
that the dairy women in the days