The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1901-03-20

uftccp members OF the various royal
families in Europe had perished within
year were the authorities induced 20
try the experiment on prisoners con-
dcmncd to death, who were to have
their sentences eommutcd if they
would submit to the process. In Precr
America the practice made it's way
much more rapidly, but sill had to
struggle against much opposition.
When person was inoculated for
smallpox, he gave it to others as
readily as if he had acquired it in the
natural way: and thrifty physicians
set up 'inoeulation houses" many
towns refusing a license, for fear of
infection to the surrounding country.
In the Revolutionary army the raw
ages Of smallpox were tremendous.
In July, l776, 1000 of our soldiers
were i'll of smallpox at Crown Point,
and John Adams wrote home to his
friends il .ioring them to tolerate and
encourage incubation. Many people
oonfound this process with vaceina-
tion, which had not been thought Of;
a recent Intelligent writer, for il
stance, saying OF Jonathan Edwards:
"He left Stockbridge in January, 1853,
and died in the succeeding
month OF inoculation to prevent small
pox, or vaccination
Enough has been said to show what
dellverence was wrought by Jenner's
great discovery. The average death
rate in England was so greas that if
applied to the present population it
would give 100000 year. In London,
before 1900, there were 2,018 deaths
in million; in 1890, in population
OF four millions, there was jus. one
death. La 1886 there was ono death
in Massachusetts, thanks to rigid
school and factory inspection, and in
1899 cher, we're but three cases in the
State of Connecticut, az no unyacci
mated pupil can enter school. See.
ing the safety Of the public where vac
cinatien is thoroughly prac.iccd, one
realizes the merits of the decision of
Justice Clarke of the Supreme Court
OF North Carolina. He begins with
"Salus pupuii suprcma lex cThc
public welfare is the highest law').
and follows thus: "There is an i'm
piled assent on the part of every mem
Der OF society, that his own individual
welfare shall, in cases of necessity,
yield to that of the community, and
that his property, liberty, and life
shall under certain circumstances be
placed in jeopardy or even sacrificed
for the public good. If
people can draft or eonscri pt its citi-
zens to defend its borders from inya
sion, it can protect itself from the
deadly pestilenoe that walketh BY
MONDAY, by such measures as medical
science has found most eficaoious for
that purpose.
IL was just ct the period Of the
American Revolution that Jenner IL
England-already distinguished nat
uralist and physieian-had had his
attention arrested by the remark of a
milkmaid "that she couldn't have she
smallpox, as she had had the oowpox.
1t is one of the most fascinating of the
fairy stories Of science, how he per-
severed against many and great dis
oouragements, till in 1796-twent,
years after the first thought came to
him, Can this virus be inserted vol
UNFAIRLY in tho human subject?" he
was able triumphantly to answer the
question by taking lymph from the
hand of milkma;d, and inserting i,
by two incisions in the arms Of James
Phipps, healthy boy of eight, and
then demonstrating its protective
power by inocuiating with tho virus OF
smallpox by several incisious. Later
oS'~oS'oo AOoCotCuC6 nave QemOOBtEA-
ted that cowpox is the smallpox iu the
COW. but how the virus becomes mod,-
hed in the tissues Of the COW 80 as 10
produce this harmless protection il
one of nature mysteries; yet the pro.
cess itself is the cornerstone Of al
Pasteur' work in producing "attenua.
ted viruses, and in his original ex-
planations to the French Academy he
says: II asked myself, Can Jen
nerize this lymph?'"
Now as to the preJuiico against this
beneficent measure. Bacteriology has
given us she key to the circumstances
from which It arose. There are dis
eases, microbian in origin, which,
once planted in che human organism,
the most skillful specialists knows only