The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1895-03-07

DISEASE MONGE RING.
The Political Doctors and Their Dis.
se-Breeding Devices.
[FrOm Newburgh DaIly News. Feb. ., 'sS.l


The anti-toxin mongering received
black eye from the medical fist of Senator
Gallinger Of New Hampshire, in the United
States Senate yesterday. The excitement
which the political doctors have succeeded
in creating has been used to stimulate
public bodies to make appropria-
tions for alleged experiments,
with a stan OF physicians
under employ, etc. Evidently Senator
Gallinger, who was practising physician
himself, thought the fad had advanced
far enough when 1t was proposed for
the Senate to make an appropriation for
q serum plant. The Senator, therefore, took
the floor and condemned anti-toxin as
worthless, and he cited cases in which seri-
Gus results had followed its use. He said
that the Brown Sequard remedy, Koch's
lymph ana other alleged great "discov-
cries" had all, ultimately proved worthless.
He quoted, approvingly, the saying OF the
famous DIR. Rush, of Philadelphia, that
"medicine is the science of guessing"
and said that he expected to see ''anti-
toxin" relegated to the tomb of medical
discoveries that have been declared worth
less, II not absolutely harmful.
Anti-toxin serum Is on the same false
principle as Koch's tuberculin, vaccine
lymph and the ve-forever elixir, all OF
which were Intellectual 10 avert disease
or add single heart beat to- the
duration of human life. Old men who
expected TO find perpetual youth in
the Brown-Sequard Elixir found Sc
rious harm instead. Consump-
tives who took Koch's lymph died
when their time came, and all the excuses
and expl inations OF the doctors couldn't
conceal the plain fact. The toxin or poison
OF consumption was developed in animals
ortheir blood serum, and then injected into
consumptive invalids with the expectation
OF routing the microbes with an excess OF
their own toxin, or exciting the opposing &
forces OF nature in the human body to arise
and make war against the intruders. 1t
didn't take long TO discover what IL was
not good for, and now 1t is only used on
cattle to detect the presence OF Tuberculosis
before it proclaims itself-by the reaction
and fever itexeites when used on suspected
stock. In cases of diphtheria, people die
or live as the case may be, whether they
are 'vaccinated" with anti-toxin or not,
the only difference being that the use OF
anti-toxin often does great injury TO the
patient. The advocates of the serum, OF
course, maintain that practice counts for
more than theory, and that it is not essen
tial TO prove just how or why the serum
lessons the mortality OF diphtheria so long
as 1t does; but here, too, the critics have
something TO say, and they charge that
"many children suffering from lig ht forms
OF throat compla ints are now sent to the
hospitals to be treated by the serum, thus
swelling the proportion of the cured
cases, which would otherwise not be
higher than the usual average" Further
more Hausemann claims that affections OF
the Kidneys have frequently followed the
use OF this serum-in one caoe of more Sc
we're type than had eyer yet been observed
after diphtheria not thus treated.
Hahkines vaccination against cholera is
another recsnt "discovery" that has gone
down with fiags flying. Pasteur's inocu-
lations for hydrophobis are comparatively
recent, and yet nearly two hundred and
nifty deaths are reported among those who
have submitted themselves TO this sort of
treatment. In time, perhaps, even the
scientific will learn what is quite plain to
the simple minded; that poisoning the
blood is not the road to health; neither is
1t safeguard against disease.
Vaccination with the cow-pox Is the
Oldest form OF disease mopgering. No one
can lay his hand on a person and say that
he was ever the better for being vacoin-
ated. 1t berefits nobody but the doctors.
The highest authorities on medical
science testify to the worthlessness of
vaccination.
In our own town, several hundred little
children have been denied the privileges
of an education at the public schools be-
cause they DO not believe in vaccination,
while other children are allowed to attend
parochia and private schools without be-
ing asked to subscribe to n statement of
their belief in q medical fiction. When
the doctors are till allowed to domiueer
over the public, the ancient fea-
lures OF "salyation by the rack Z"
have not entirely been dethroned.
Atrocities were in former times per-
pstrated in the name Of religion; now
they are done in the name o. science. The
courts would break poor creatures on the
wheel draw them apart with horses, skin
them alive and cruelty them IL they re-
fused to accept the official
Interpretation of the Holy Writ.
In our time, the schools require
that children shall submit TO have
their arms, feet or legs lanced, aud poison
put in the wounds as confession OF faith
in board of education's code OF medi-
cal science, and as the first lesson in
modern witchcraft as taught in the pub
lie schools.
1t is hideous mistake, a terrible i'm
position and discreditable TO the com
munity that the outrage should be al
lowed to continue so long.