The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-01-23
THE STATUS OF
 VACCINATION

Distrust of medical dogma is awak-
 ening among the laity of this coui1- try, as well as in Engiand,s Germany
 France and the Scandinavias; and the
 result is that increasing opposition is
 being manifested toward vaccination.
 The biased statements and faulty
 statistics which MT Gladstone repu-
 diated as unworthy of consideration
 on the memorable occasion when the
 English vaceinists attempted to per-
 petuate compulsory vaccinationSare tiny by educated laymen-many of whom are familiar with the philoso- phicaI and evidential value of stetis- tics.
 Ahtipathy to Vaccination Growing.
 The result is growing antipathy and resistance to our arbitrary en- forcement of vaccination as a proven tative of smallpox.
 It would be interesting to know just how a child who had been vaccinat- ed, and was immune" could be en- dangered by sitting in the same school room with a healthy, rosy checked youngster who had not been Yaccinated.
 This mythical danger, however, is but one of the many reductio ad ab- Surdum arguments which are. advan. ced favoring enforced vaccination.
 If the enthusiasts believe that vac cination prevents smallpox, let them their victinns every week or two. Don't wait for an Interval of six weeks to | elapse between inoculations-as they 1 did in the. Philippines-because Chief 1 Surgeon Lippincott's report shows 1 that in the five years ending in 1902, | there were 73T cases of smallpox in | the army with 261 deaths. So it | may be safer to vaccinate-say, twice | week.
 But don't insist on vaccfnating-[ willy -nilIy-the families of those 'aiIed to convince-favorably
 Of course it is not to be wondered | tt that the vaccination obseSSion is % universal. Ever physicians In- ogical, pathological or preventive ae- ion-much less anything concerning he mortality and horrible conditions
 Death From Vaccination. ]
 These results are now so universal y tabulated, however. that it is be- ond comprehension HOW any con cientjous physician DARES put the 'oisonous virus into the system of the redulous patient. IS
 we KNOW (availing ourselves of he ADMITTED cases-ignoring in I scribed- to tetanus. septicaemia, endocarditis, tuberculosis, ? crofula and contagious blood diseaS- I eaths than smallpox. In England, z pr instance-where the ACTUAL, not I ne EVASIVE circurnlocutiary cause umber of deaths from vaccinatio-1 !. nd smallpox-as furnished by the 4 egistrar General of Vital Statistics ear. Smallpox Vaccination '$$s '$s s: E E E E E
 '9S MS,i. ,, x st a.s,,,e,5. os 1octored" to its lowest possible at nuation, but even accepting the re- ' 'rded and admitted deaths on this asis, the conclusion is inevitable that is more dangerous than nailpox. ]. These are questions of great mo- u udy them ''in the large" Ia I am familiar with the epidemic ci
 Alaska referred to by recent e Vif ffI the ne eontention @ % that smailpo1 eHp1 a,
 a filth disease. The Aleuts and p' askan Indians are the filthiest -hu- si an beings in the world -excepting St n. nina and Southern Siberia, who suf- SC r equally from the ravages of small ST The most unsanitary tenement in al 4w York's East Side is a hospital ce 'erating room in immaculate clean less by comparison with these prim we hoveIs--where humans live in cir own excreta.
 Further, all zymotic, or germ dis ses. take more violent hold upon he We had, for centuries, the advan- pa ges of civilization. The we'll sd own potency of syphilis. myolitis. berculosis. scarlet fever-even pc most erroneously di
 merely an incident-in wiping out al tire tribes. is well known: 8 This increased susceptibility must te 70 be considered in studying the sig he icance of the Alaskan epidemic. to To realize the inestimable value of do 1itstfon and hygiene. one has but a remember that Leicester, England, as events smallpox, promotes the gen tn Il health, and reduces the. death .e to one of the lowest-without m ccination: while Japan, one of the Bl ,t vaccinated countries in the world .ye