Norwich bulletin., 1910-03-30
MEDICAL RESTRICTION OF SCHOOL CHILDREN AND
 EVILS ATTENDANT THEREON
Question of Inspection Raised and Alleged Erroneous Theories Attacked Expense Unnecessary?-Cerms Serum, vaccines and Squirt Cuns-Contason and Right Living.

the sort happens.
 | This 3s due to the unconsciousness quent absence of fear on the part of | those who had come in contact with 1 the dangerous" individual; an ex- ample of one case where Ignorance Is | bliss"
 l Had they been aware of it. some of | them would very likely have developed l the disease: I say some of them" for
 not every one fears disease and con | tagion, but those who have been edu- | cated to believe in contagion and dis- ease germs," and by seeing houses pta- | carded. and policemen standing guard | in front of dwellings, have developed | a fear of disease, would be, and like as
 not their sickness would take on the | symptoms of the particular disease
 they feared. That disease can be in- | duced by fear is a fact so generally
 known that no instances need be cited. l The germ theory" so-called, like l the theory of contagion, is fallacious. | By this do not wish to be understood | to deny the existence of germs" or microbes" or whatever they may be | called, but I wish to deny the cor | rectness of the theory that germs | found associated with disease, are, of | themselves able to infect others with
 the disease of which they are errone- | ously asserted to be the cause. said
 "of themselves" for there is way i by which they may be made to serve | as a medium of infection. as, for in stance, when they are collected, culti- vated, inoculated into various animals, for the production of serums. anti toxins vaccines, or viruses. and after
 wards used to poison the life-blood of | sick. or well, human beings, in abso- | lute violation and disregard of natures | safeguards against such invasion By done, and more is the pity is too ire Quently done; in fact, the tendency of | modern medical practice Is toward | treatment of every disease condition I vyifh anff-fnHfnR U1NCfnaG vfruses, all obtained and propagated in | the way described. What the end is likely to be is not hard to forefell, for af
 seruIn-therapy ie greatly extended IL 1 tire human race. There is hope. how | ever, against such a terrible result, | and the leaven bids fair to come from | within the profession Itself, for the | doctors are fast dividing into two great opposing camps, and when the battle Is over, ''serurn- thu herapy' will have perished, one more error buried,
 and the profession will return purified
 to engage in more practical and nat
 ural modes of treatment.
 | To any ordinary observer it looks
 as if the ultimate object of modern | medical research and so-called pro | gress," based on the theories of con- | taston and disease germs" Is to make
 the practice of medicine a mechanical
 art. The symptoms, vitality, condition, | age, sex, will not need to be consider i ed in connection with the patient. The
 coming doctor, fin fact he is already here will simply obtain a. few scrap
 ings of germs" and perhaps a lock of hair. from his patient, send them to
 some bactereological laboratory of di- agnosis of the case and, having thus obtained Information as to what ails his patient load his syringe with the particular serum warranted to kill the ] particular bugs with which the pa
 tient is infected and inject the dose into the patient. Simple, isn't h? 1 And not only that, but If a person is | well, and wants to keep well, all he | has to do is to apply to this doctor
 who will inject a quantity of the va | until it takes" for iuImunizing pur- poses. that is. as preventives. It seems | too bad that the Almighty with all his | ern doctors at his elbow when he ere | ated this earth and all it contains, to ! warn of the danger of humanity from
 "disease germs" so things could have been so arranged that when a baby is born into the world 1t would come forth with bottle of serum under one arm 1 and squirt gun" under the other. | No mistake about it, the modern doc | tor should have been created ahead of all other things. not as one of my | friends says. from all the scraps left
 over after all other things had been | created.
 | Fortunately, however, these so-caIIed | "disease germs" are the result, not the | cause of disease. and we need have no fear of them except when some mod ern doctor insists upon injecting them | into us. If we were asked to swallow | them in the ordinary way, even in good sized doses, we could accommo- date with impunity, but think not
 many would relish the taste or acquire
 an appetite for them.
 | It is @ well known medical fact that
 the particular germ" declared to cause | the disease is very often entirely ab- | sent in unmistakable cases of the dis ease, but on the other hand, is fre- | quentliy found in abundance fin the well and healthy. Bactereologists ad- init that many cases of undoubted | dipfftheria, for instance. are met with | in which not single Klebs-Loeffier
 bacillus was found after careful and
 repeated examinations by competent | investigators, while fully virulent"
 RIebs- -Loeff1er baciili have been re- peatedly found In the throats of largo
 numbers of healthy children and
 adults who had not suffered from diphtheria, and did not get it after | wards.
 From this condition of affairs it is
 self evident that bactereological dag
 nosis cannot be depended on with safe
 ty. and that If depended on. fearful | injustice and wrong can be done to innocent persons.
 No better proof of this faisity of the
 claim that these germs cause the dis ease is to be found than is confined | in the statement of Henry P. Loomis, | M. D., of New York. whose oppor.uni- | rleS Tor investigating tuDeFCuloSlS fi.tN7 been as extensive, probably as those | of any man in America Tn The Med-
 teal Record for July 2s. 1905, page 156: ! he says: '"The analyses all showed | that three and one-third months were | the average time that elapsed from the actual beginning of the disease, as estimated from the history of physical ! examina tfons, and the first time tuber- ! cule baciIli were found in the sputum. i The presence fin the sputum of tuber- | cule bacilH is not by any means an | early development. in my estimation" | Contrast with this the declaration | of w T. Councilman. M. D., writer of | the article on tuberculosis in the last edition of the Preference Handbook of | the Medical Science" that tuberculosis ! is "an infectious disease caused by the | bacilli tuberculosis" The statements | throughout this article rest upon the unwarranted assumption that con sumption owes its origin to the tuber- cuie bacillus, and that, in the absence of this parasite, tuberculosis cannot occur These two doctors disclose a pretty state of affairs surely; but, if the tuberculosis germ" is not present Tn case of consumption until nearly four months from the beginning of the disease how is meteorological exam fo fna fha