The comet. (Johnson City, Tenn.) 1884-1916, 1898-04-07
vACCINATION-PRO AND CON.

"Seest thou man wise in his own
conceit? there is mere hope of fool
than of him. Prov. 26-12.
In the Staff of Sd of March there is
an article under the head "Vaecina-
ton" and credited to the New York
Tribune, so absolutely at variance with
my own experience and observation on
the subject, 1 do not feel willing to let
it pass by unnOticed. 1t is just such
literary rubbish as this that keeps man
kind enslaved by ignorance and super
stition, and when the disease appears
in town the people begin to run to
and fro and talk the matter up until the
whole town is thrown into the cenvul-
sive madness of smallpox panic 1t
is extremly y unfortunate that educated
fools ever write on this subject at all
since there is such o terror and una
voidable dread of the disease as to lead
to panicky conduct among the mass of
people everywhere. But to the article
in question.
statistics prove that the current be-
lief in the efficiency of vaccination is
wrong. Thus in 1869 there was a tre-
mendOus epidemic of small pox in Bos-
ton, Mass. In population of less than
twenty thousand there were no less
than s, ,346 cases of smallpox, but OF
these 8, 346 cases S,114 were given by
innoculation
This writer was talking through his
hat. OF this tremendous epidemic"
of S,346 cases in 1862, he tells us8, ia OF
them were injected directly into the
blood of the victims by 'innoculatiOn, u
leaving 232 cases of the disease to
have been imbibed by contagion in
the ordinary way. Thus you see the
author of this article was too verdant
to draw the distinction between vacci-
nation and "innoculation," and 50, OF
course, absolutely incapable of throw
ing any light on the efficiency of "yac-
cination" as remidial means Of pre-
venting the disease. [ do net doubt
the education or literary ability of this
writer, but incline to think If we would
trace him back few years we should
find that he parted his hair in the mid
die, were toothpick shoes and spent
much of his time in the football field
where intellectual giants of his kind
do mostly congregate. At any rate, !
should expect him every way capable
of composing learned and elaborate
thesis on the technical distinctions g
highly educated man could draw be
tween twedledum and twedledee. But
unfortunately for his statistics" Oh
the subject of vaccination" his "tre.
mendous epidemic in Boston in 1862,
occurred about "a years before Jennel
had made his final experiment ON Jas
Phepps on the 18th of May, 1896, by
which vaccination became known to the
world as preventive of smallpox. L
was not until two years after this-179t
and not as the types made me say il
my article of the Gath Feb. "1790,
that Jenner published his work offering
the world absolute protection from thu
ravages Of smallpox if vaccination il
properly performed. Those who fee
an interest on this subject may see i
fully explained in Chambers Encyclo
pedia Vol. 4, p. 688.
Since my article in The Staff of 24tl
February, quite number of my friends
wish me to explain how I accout fol
vaccination cutting off smallpox aftel
the poison of contagion has once beer
lodged in the system. The explanation
OF this is simplicity itself, if you arr
willing to go back to first principles
and begin at TIE ground in your investi
CATION. I assume that you have reat
the great Book of books where the di
vine Teacher refers to the woman VIII,
chad little leaven in three measures
of meal, and the whole lump becam,
leaveled. 1t will be necessary, there
fore, for us to go to the kitchen wher'
they not only talk about things, bu
where they absolutely do things. New
that we are in the kitchen we will wal
patiently for the Queen to come int
her little Kingdom, mount the thron,
and take the scepter in her hand. ",
are now in the presence of royalty
and although our queen is an uncrownet
petentate who rules her little Kingdom
more by love than by law, let us be 81
| lent and watch her as she moves th,
magic wand that rules the world. First
then, she takes the -four to the knead
ing pan and with little yeast works i
into mass of dough, rolls it up in
napkin and lays it away from "a to 8
hours before putting in the baking pal
For what purpose is this delay? She i
simply waiting for the period of incu
hation to ripen it for use. If you under
stand this simpleevery day operation
that goes on in all we'll regulated kitch
ems, you are prepared with the key tina
will unlock the mysteries of all tina
long list of Zymosis diseases of whic1
smallpox is one of the most distressin,
in the list. The word is Greek lyme
tekos'or Zymesis-and means frmenta
tion. This Greek word Zymoteke
. + Iau..c alor- 80 49,, J j