Norwich bulletin., 1916-09-09
Disease Carriers.

MT. Editor: We read in the columns | of the daily papers of Sept. 7th that | health department officials announced 1 that persons who recovered from in fantile paralysis previous to the pres 1 ent epidemic had contributed more 1 than seven gallons of blood tc be used as serum in the treatment of cases now in hospitals. E. E. Storrs in the 1 columns of the New York Herald of Sept. 9th has this to say:
 It would seem that the most ele- mentary knowledge of things medical would call a halt to the use of serum Gin experimental practice on children to find a remedy for poiionlyelitis) ob- tained from the blood of indiscrimi- | nately accepted volunteers, or from those people now invited by Mr. Dela- | field of the citizens committee to sell 1 their blood at $5 a, person. If 1t ever should be claimed that the sources of | this volunteer or commercial product | are chosen with care. we all know that there is not adequate time in which to make thorough tests of their physical condition. Latent disease, predisposi- 1 tion, inheritance and habits lie very subtly hidden sometimes, perhaps of ten, unrevealed to a nasty or superficial examination. Talk of disease carriers! This method invites carriers of many varieties of blood taint to transmit it to the young of our communities. The scheme is fraught with mum berless dangers and is a destructive theory. Have not many of the ailing and dead children already been poisoned by com mercial vaccines? Two sufferers of my acquaintance under three years of age were vaccinated in November and were among the first to die in this epidemic, one with the vaccination wound unhealed. Would if not be saner to prevent tafnt rather than ex- pertinent with matter derived from taint? According to an editorial writer in the New York Sun an official of the health department predicts the end of the present epidemic about the mid- dle of this month, but promises an other but smaller epidemic to 6e ex- pected next summer. The Suns ed ltor proceeds to give over a half col- unn Of advice to the health authorf- 1 ties on how they should proceed to investigate this mysterious disease. He says: When the epidemic ends, if providentially it does end it would be well for the health department, with such scientific help as it may find ir 1 wise and becoming to accept from state and national experts, to investi- gate this mysterious disease. It never seems to have dawned upon the Suns editor that this mysterious disease is the direct result of violated nature; 1 law by those same scientific experts who nave been given autocratic power. over the lives and health of our chil-
 
 | minute that this question can be l solved by knocking at the portals of the Rockefeller institute or fawning ar the feet of the American Medical as- i sociation, he will probably be griev- l ously disappointed. Dr. w. J. Shrews- bury in current number of an inde- pendent medical journal says: Tyhe unknown god today is serum -therapy, and before this impossible and un- | fathomable idol bow the chief priests and wise men of the a1lopathic school.
 It needs no prophet to foresee that the manifest destiny of this graven image Is eventually to be discarded and cast out upon the mountainous junk heap
 of medical delusions. But who can look down the vista of the coming | fifty years without pitying eye,
 which sees the army of the mutilated
 and the slain-the multitude of men, women and children who will yet be
 offered up in the cause of pseudo
 science before the wretched, ugly mo- loch of serum -therapy shall have been
 appeased.
 A W DAWES