Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1894-02-15
VACCINATION.

IanS are qualified to speak with some
show of authority; and it may be heresy
for layman to attempt to question the
doctrines or advice given us by that
learned profession.
While it may be true that we secure
eternal life through faith, the want of
faith often proves our salvation here
below. And when the doctors tell US
that the vaccination of all the school
children Of the state is necessary for
our protection against threatened in
vaslon of small pox, a layman might
perhaps be excused for stating a few
undisputed facts, and asking a few
questions on a matter that SO nearly
concerns his temporal welfare
1t appears from history that during
the latter part of the last century, the
practice of incubation as a protection
to the individual against a severe attack
of small pox was in general use. This
was usually done by taking the small
pOX virus from person who had that
disease in a mild form, and was sup
posed to be free from the taint of other
diseases; because then, as now, it was d
conceded fact that the transmission of
that disease from arm to arm was liable
to carry with it other diseases of the
person from whom the virus was de-
rived. In the year 1896, DR.. Jenner
discovered q disease Oh the teats of
milch COWS that was transmitted to the
hands Of the mixers. He diagnosed
the disease as small pox in the COW, and
owing to It's mild form and nonconta-
gious character in the persons infected,
he took this virus to inoculate persons,
as he then supposed, with mild form
Of small pox. But the disease in the
COW was not small pox, and Jenner in
diagnosing it as such, committed a
blunder of which an average COW doc
tor might we'll be ashamed. Yet it was
this blunder that inaugurated vaccin-
alton and made Jenner famous.
But we ask our physicians, will vac
Cination protect us against small poX?
The answer is, "Well no, but if you do
catch it you will have it in milder
form, you will not have it in the malig-
nant or continent forms, you will escape
death and liability of being seriously dis
figured by it." Is this answer true? Do
not statistics of all small pox hospitals,
where records are kept, prove the an
swer false? What do our doctors say to
these statistical facts? Their answer is
that the protecting influence of vaccin-
alton continues to grow less and ought
to be vaccinated as often as once in
seven years III order to insure protec-
ton. But there are persons in this city
who can testify to continent forms of
small poX on persons bearing the vac
cine scar, and that too. within three
years after hey had been vaccinated.
And the records Of the Prussian army
III which all men are revaccinated be-
fore being mustered in, showed, in the
small pox epidemic of 1871, death rate
from small pox greater than was found
in any Of the northern countries over
which that epidemic spread.
Leprosy, the plague, typhus fever
and small poX have, at times, appeared
as wide spread epidemics in Europe.
Some of these and many other conta-
: giOus disorders once prevalent, have
nearly disappeared from the earth.
The cause of their decline may be in
some cases uncertain, but in the light
of modern science, and our knowledge
of the germ character of most conta-
giOus disorders, we are led to believe
that the increase in intelligence, a
greater cleanliness, and more rigid
quarantine have been most potent
factors in repelling the invasion of those
contagious disorders. In short, that
the ssme agencies that have in most
enlightened communities we'll nigh
exterminated lice and itch at one time
so prevalent, are the agencies upon
which we can safely rely to stamp out
other contagious disorders
. Would not one half of the money we
are called on to spend on vaccination,
if spent on vigorous, thorough
quarantine, and other sanitary
measures, be quite sufficient to keep
small poX from spreading beyond the
place or domicile in which it might
first appear? Have we not done this
very thing in Wood County at four
different times? And | am reliably
informed that small pox has in this
way been kept out of the Australian
colonies. Might it not be we'll to
initiate them in this as we have in our
way of voting?
Although there is no small pox with
Z in fifty miles of us the doctors, with the
strong arm of the state behind them,
say our school children must be vaccin-
ated, and our sour school board says
$50 mote it be-"
We ask then those physicians who
are ready to use the virus, to tell US
what virus they are using. Is the pus
they use taken direct from the COW, or
from a person who has had the So
called COW pox? If from the COW, is it
the same disease in the COW that
Jenner made use of, or is it small pox
attenuated through inoculating COWS, as
some now claim? The people who
have to submit to vaccination, have a
right to a reliable answer to these
questions T,IYNAN