The St. Joseph observer. [volume] (St. Joseph, Mo.) 1906-1932, 1916-10-28

diminution If it is possible to
frighten people into having it, and it
is commonly admitted that it is one
of the easiest things to frighten peo-
pie into being sick, the campaign of
the doctors, in the press, should be
eminently successful. Supposing in
fantile paralysis to be anything like as
dangerous as the world is being as
sured that it is, everything should be
done to keep the public calm, instead
of the services of the press being en-
listed to alarm it in every way. In
spite of this, the latest appeal to its
fears has been launched in the an
nouncement that the disease "shows a
preference for people who have been
previously healthy" Thus one of the
greatest paradoxes of medical law re-
ceiyes an unexpected confirmation,
the paradox which declares that the
healthy man need not congratulate
himself upon his health, since when
he is most healthy, then is the time
to be best confident. Thus one be-
gins to see why, in certain countries,
medical men receive fees only when
their patients are well, with the
agreement that these fees shall cease
the moment they become unwell
One of the disappointing things,
however, about this new disease,
which has, temporarily at any rate,
eclipsed all the old complaints, is that
the medical profession has discovered
that it commonly attacks patients re-
Gently inoculated with serums in
tended to protect them from other
diseases. Thus the child fortified
against smallpox is rendered danger
ously liable to infantile paralysis, and
this according to the laws of what is
quantity termed science. 1t is no mere
layman who makes this charge, it is
fully qualified doctor of medicine
He seems to be aware that the idea
will not be popular in his profession,
for he thinks it possible that his
brethren may be moved to laughter
when he tells them that the present
epidemic may have been caused by
vaccination. Anybody who knows any
thing at all about the vaccination con-
troversy will be perfectly willing to
accept DR.. Blighton's may have been
without smiling, since he goes on to
point out, that it is worth the candid
reflection of the medical profession,
that since the introduction of COM
pulsory vaccination, tuberculosis has
increased 800 per cent. There used
to be story told, in the far west, of
a doctor who, being called in to attend
a child for an ailment he could not
diagnose, gave the mother a phial, the
contents of which he reassuringly de-
clared, would throw the infant into
fits. Then, he added beamingly, send
for me, I'm death on fits" 1t seems
rather like that with vaccination. In
order to guard against smallpox you
give the patient something else, and
then you are called in to cure him of
that.
AS matter of fact the critic of
medicine has never any occasion to
appeal to the outside witness. He can
always find all he desires in the ranks
of the medical profession itself. Was
there not a doctor, in London, who
humorously declared, in confidential
moment, that the operation for appen-
dicitis commonly was marked by the
success with which the patient was re-
moved from the appendix, instead OF
the appendix from the patient? The
remark was not considered irresisti-
bly, funny in the medical profession.
but it was printed nevertheless in a
leading medical paper. Then there
was another celebrated doctor who be-
came sarcastic at what he called the
fetish of the tub. He went on to ex-
plain that extreme cleanliness was a
positive incitement to disease; indeed,
he went so far as to leave no possible
doubt that the only way to be thor
oughly healthy was to be equally thor
oughly dirty. And so again today We
have the principal medical paper, in
England, permitting the vilifcation Of
quinine, in its columns, in way which
would have been regarded as sacrileg'
ious only a few years ago. 1t per-
mits one of it's contributors TO de-
clare, without any circumlocution, that
the use of quinine, as a preventive of
malaria, is a fraud. Was not, this
disbeliever demands, every inhabitant
of Ismailia, which is surrounded by
forty miles of desert, compulsorily and
futilely dosed with quinine as a safe
guard against malaria? 1t was GER
tainly a great experiment, this making
an object lesson of an entire town, and
it is a pity that no more success
should have attended it than that
which attended the famous curse of a
certain Cardinal Lord Archbishop OF
IL.