The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1894-11-15
RESPONSIBILITY FOR IGNORANCE.

In the eighteenth century small
pox was so common, a smooth face
was noticeable. One in seven out
of all who were born, died Of the
disease. The brilliant Lady Wort
ley Montague, who had lost her
eyebrows through it, was, in ZIG,
the wife of the British ambassador
at the Ottoman Court. There, she
saw the method of migrating"
which, though not as effective as
vaccination, was the use of slight
form of small pox, which left no
mark, and no one died OF 1t. This
method prevailed throughout the
Turkish Empire. Lady Montague
returned to England in 1124, and
attempted to introduce the prac-
tice into London, where the raw
ages of the disease were frightful.
She was called "crank." People
were skeptical. Physicians and
clergymen refused to listen to her.
Her plan was denounced from the
pulpit, "as an impious interference
with the just and inscrutable visi-
tation of Cod" and it was said that
posterity would marvel at her ig-
norance and audacity. Fifty years
afterwards, the College of Physi-
clans, of London, permitted an ex-
pertinent. The Princess of Wales
caused her son to be treated by it,
and the method came into general
use, until vaccination took its
place. During this long period, af-
ter Lady Montague had introduced
the remedy, and before it was used,
thousands Of men, women and
children persisted of this disease.
Who was responsible for these
deaths? Who is to be held respon-
sible, today, for ignorance? If a
child is killed, he who kills it must
also die by the hangman and if
he kills without intending it, he is
put in prison. We now find that
the filtering of water through sand,
for drinking purposes, has greatly
restricted typhoid disease, and
lowered the death rate of great
cities in Europe and America.
Who was responsible for the
ignorance, through which myri-
ads of people died, and the
lives of myriads more, made intol-
cradle? Who is reponsible for the
ignorance of the young mother,
who has practiced on the piano for
years, and has learned to dress
well, but has never studied the
simplest lessons, in the chemistry
of food, and slowly kills her child
by giving it the milk of diseased
cows, because she knows no better?
If supernatural tribunal sat on
the earth, today, and vast crowd
of educated" loving, self-sacrific-
ing men and women, were sum-
moned before it for child killing,
through ignorance, would the de-
tense of 'we did not know" or, lit
was the doctors business" be taken
as a valid excuse? Human tribun-
ais, in the interests of safe travel, in
sist that railroad companies must
use the very best known mechani-
cal appliances, for preventing acct
dents, and that, without these, the
defense of great care" constant
watchfulness," counts for nothing.
"Irresponsibility for ignorance"
Is, generally, the law of the moral
world today. Human law, through
the necessities of the case, does not
permit ignorance of its own pro- :
visions to be any excuse for offense
against it. One is presumed to
know what the law is. But in that
vast domain of life, which lies be-
yond the limited reach OF human >
law, responsibility for ignorance
is yet accepted by mankind, as the
correct rule of living. If the men
and the women, who permit prema-
ture death, and suffering, and sor-
row in the world, because they do
not learn what is before them to be
earned, were imprisoned for their
ignorance, the capital of the world
would largely be invested in jails
md penitentiaries. I