The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1909-03-30

Secretary of State Board of Health Used
 Bulletin to Defend Vaccination. Has the Doctor Forgotten What Killed
 the Krismeyer Girl in New Haven? Physician Asked to Study Vaccination
 Reports from Philippine Islands and
 Small Pox Cases in Japan, the Best
 Vaccinated Country in the World.
 Major Thomas Boudren, who is the active force behind the anti-vaccina- tion bills now pending in the General Assembly, gave an interview to the newspapers, this morning, in which he sharply raked Dr. Townsend, secretary of the State Board of Health. over the coals for his defense of vaccination made in the monthly bulletin of the board. and challenged him to defend his statements as to the efficacy of smallpox in the Philippines.
 The interview with Major Boudren follows:
 In the recent monthly bulletin of the Connecticut Health Department there appears the usual biennial dismal ap- peal to the members of the Legisla- ture on the subject of Vaccination.
 It was feared, by the Secretary, that present salutary laws relating to that subject, now on the statute books to whose benef1cient operation we are in debted for our present immunity from the horrors of smallpox. and stated that 'the chief argument of the An tis' Is that vaccination does not pre- vent smallpox and that it caused other worse diseases
 That certainly is the ground we take and present proof which cannot be re- futed by any effort of that element of the medical fraternity of which the honorably Secretary is such a bright and shiuing light.
 We find nothing in the instances re- ferred to by him that tends in the least degree to establish his claim.
 His reference to the virtues of vac cination in the Philippines is certainly unfortunate.
 To say that in a certain Philippine village an epidemic of smallpox ceased after everybody was. vaccinated proves nothing, for epidemics of other kinds have stopped after they have fed upon all the subjects liable to attack. both before and since the day of compul- sorry vaccination.
 For a definite and striking example of the utter worthlessness of vaccina- ton as a prophylactic, will the Doctor please study the report of Chief Sur geon Lippincott Of the U. s. Army for the years 1898, 1899, 1900 1901, to Sur geon General Sternberg, in which he reports as follows:
 "This Army is the best vaccinated Army in the world, vaccination being attended to as regularly as the drills. '' yet we find during that period there deaths and over 1000 cases requiring hospital treatment as result of vac- cinatiOn.
 A conscientious perusal of the above report would furnish food for thought and might help the doctor to arrive at a different conclusion as to the great virtue of the Jennerian humburg.
 It is somewhat enlightening to study the effect of vaccination in Europe from 1885 to 1874 and not skip that Dc riod, as the M.D.'s have a habit of do- ing.
 Here is one instructive item. The City of Berlin, after 35 years of prac- tically compulsory vaccinatfon. suffer ed a larger death rate from smallpox than any City during the 18th Gen. tury, except Stockholm and Vienna, and closely approximating the largest epidemic of the 18th Century (see Pearce's Vital Statistics, pages 94 to 9S.)
 If not too busy. Dr. Townsend might look at the report of the U. 8. Marine Hospital Service for May 1903, con- demic in Japan.
 Japan is admittedly the best vaccin- ated country in the world, yet dur ing the past year they have had an epidemic of smallpox with the follow
 "RecentIy there were 2,OO0 cases of smallpox in Kobo, of which nearly 50 per cent. proved fatal, notwithstand. ing the fact that only 1Sper cent. of those who perished were not vaccin- ated."!The New York Evening Post, quoted in the World Wide, April 4, '0S.
 The United States Public Health Re
 Ia in following statistics of cases of small pox recently reported in Japan: Gen. eral. 14:sss; Balkan 2S; Formosa' 10; Kagoshima, |; Kobe, 51Si; Moi. 126; seki, IS: Tokyo. 1864; Wakamatsu. 1S4; and Yokohama, 446. Total 23,5S7.
 A later report from Kobe states that the death rate was 50 per cent. of case fatality, being more than 1000 deaths in that one City.
 Scientifically protected?
 Probably our good friend the doctor would say "that Is an exceptional
 Here is another case that needs look ing oyer pr. M. J. ROsenau of the U. s. Marine Hospital Service in an Official report stated:
 Procured in the open market, 95 samples of vaccine virus of different makes: and examination disclosed the presence in every sample of organisms likely to produce diseases other than vaCcinia, some even containing tetahuS germs.''
 Perhaps this little explanatory note will enable the poor ignorant layman to accept without further question the fairy tale of the" purity and harm lessness' of the virus in use at the present day.
 The good Dr. Townsend acknowl- edges that in times past the bovine virus was sometimes harsh in its ac- ton and produced various rashes upon the skin.'' With modern improve ments in it's manufacture, and the pro- lection afforded in this country by a strict government supervision, its pu- rity is guaranteed and it cannot have other than a simple direct action"
 "Direct action sure enough, for the papers frequently give accounts of deaths from vaccination in many parts of the country.
 Purity" guaranteed by Government supervision, will not have very much weight when it can be most emphat- iG nr