The Palatka news and advertiser. [volume] (Palatka, Fla.) 1908-19??, 1916-06-16
Rip Van Wrinkle.
IBy a Correspondents

by 4 CorreSpendent.)
Rip Van Wrinkle has walked up again
Kip or one of his progeny some
dozen or more generations down the
llne--and this time way down in
South Florida.
He walked up and heard the rum
BILE of the choo choo cars. He rubbed
his eyes and looked and beheld Flori-
da's Health Train rolling into Fort
Myers. He dug his knuckles into his
eyes once more; he saw the big To-
connective wouldn't bite and by degrees
ne screwed up his courage and enter
ed the big Pullmans and looked at the
exhibit. He looked and looked and by
and by he went away and broke into
print His impressions were repro
duced in the Estero American Eagle,
and some days later his article was
copied into the Ocala Banner-May
81. Of course this reprint was joke,
for it would be impossible to imagine
the Grand Old Man of Florida's
Fourth Estate reproducing such an
article excepting in the humorous col
umn.
But, honestly, it is interesting to
see how much has happened, what
strides science has made, since Rip
went to sleep back somewhere in the
los or SOS.
Rip was very much surprised, even
disturbed by some of the placarded
announcements he saw hanging in the
train, especially this one: Smallpox
is a voluntary disease. No one has
to have it who cares to avoid it," Rip
doubts this statement because, he
says, his own father was vaccinated
and later had the disease. Perhaps
you were mistaken, Rip, perhaps not;
perhaps it didn't take" but that
doesn't change the fact Rip that it
has taken in thousands, yes, mill
ions of other cases, and because of
Jenncrs gift to the world millions of |
men and women have escaped, mill
ions of lives have been saved and the
dcstinies of nations have been chang
ed thereby. It's a fact, Rip, and |
when you have been awake long
enough to get into touch with men
who have been awake all these years,
you'll have to change your mind
Another carded announcement wor-
ried Rip. 1t reads: Malaria is car
ried only by the mosquito. Bad air
and miasmi have nothing TO do with
it,"
That's true, Mr.. Van Wrinkle, in
spite of the quotation you hurl at us,
from the Encyclopedia Britannica,
which says: THE oldest and most pre-
vaIent hypothesis of malaria is that it
is specific poison generated in the
soil"
Now, Van, that was all right about
the time you went to sleep. People
used to think that way and talk that
way, even the doctors didn't know
what other explanation to give, so
they learnedly guessed this one out.
But, Rip, prevalent hypothesis" have
given way to definite, demonstrated
proofs, and while you have been sleep
ing your years away, the most emil
nent medical scientists got to study
ing over few of these problems, and
they found out that malaria, yellow
fever, typhoid fever, bubonic plague
and quite a good many of these dis
agreeable diseases are caused by the
injection into the human system of
bacteria and parasites which develop
these diseases; that each disease has
its own distinct microbe, and that one
kind of microbe cannot generate any
other disease than its own.
They went further and found that
these little bugs (you can't see them,
they're too smalD are carried by mos
uitOes or flies or feas, which transfer
them to other human beings from
those that have the particular disease.
And more than that, Rip, these differ
emit diseases can't possibly be started
in any way excepting by the partlcu-
lar. individual organism that belongs
TO each disease. It's fact, Van, and
the most learned scientific men in the
world, men who know a lot more
about it than you or |, agree that 1t
is a fact. 1t makes it lot easier,
Rim, knowing the cause of any dis
ease, to get busy and head it off. {
Now, Rip, if you will read your en-
,vcIopedia again and more slowly, you
will notice that it doesn't say that the
MOSQUITO transmission of malaria Is
not a fact; it just tells what people
Ised to think, not what intelligent peo-
nile like us-think and know today, IN
1916. ;, n. d,
For things have changed lot, Rip, 9
since you went to sleep, and the doc
tors have concluded that it is great
Heal better and more economical to
disease than to have to cure ,,
It. ,I - :
Well, Rip didn't like this placar!d IN
Tho train: "a careless splitter with a
little cough is more dangerous than a II