The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1922-02-14
Two Views Of Vaccination And It's Various Consequences A paper by the Publicity Committee of the Bridgeport Medical Association with an analysis of it's contents.

~-~------~~ ~>~---~->--~ ~~ This article by the publicity com
 m1ttee Of the Bridgeport Medical as- soctat1on contains certain assertions about the usual course of vaccination when it is inflicted a second time upon the same person. It is of course true that infections of all sorts react Tn differing degrees under differing conditions and upon persons of differ ing resistance or immunity. Not every person who is exposed to an | infectious or a contagious disease gets that disease, whether it be small pox, scarlet fever, influenza, or humps.
 Whether a, given person has small
 matter for doctors. Whether the pa tient has been vaccinated is a matter of testimony and the presence of the marks. When the doctors have re- ported that so many persons had small pox, and that so many were vaccinated and so many were unvac- cinated, these figures once being a matter of record, are no longer medi- cal evidence, but mathematical evil dence.
 g Why is it now said that va.ccina- ton protects for five years, whereas it was formerly said to protect for hfef The vaccination marks upon thousands of persons with small pox compelled the first view to be aban- doned.
 In America there are no adequate SIdliSIbCS Ol SIiltlI pOA auu VdCClud- tion. The number of vaccinations should be reported, with the conse- quences thereof. The vaccina1 con dition of small pox cases should also be reported and the deaths and other accidents that follow va ccination.
 In Bridgeport it is likely that a thousand cases of serious accidents following vaccination can be assem- bled.
 Four such cases are in the tmme- diate personal experience of the few persons who are members or chief employees of the Board of Education; i; a small number of persons.
 The English statistics, which are officially kept, show that from 1905 to 1919 about half as many persons died in England from vaccination and and of both causes a much smaller number than perished of measles, whooping cough, scarlet fever or chicken pox.
 luminates the description of the symp- toms of vaccination in infancy:
 vaccination in infancy acts like the other so-called eruptive levers Of man measles, etc.5 which, in most cases are of short duration and ex- hibit no alarming symptoms"
 Vaccination does not t'act'' like tn csc 'so-called eruptive diseases Of childhood" because 1t is not nearly as deadly.
 Th.s type of small pox which has appeared in unvaccinated Connecticut during forty years is not as deadly as measles, chicken poX, scarlet fever, diphtheria, whooping cough and other diseases common to childhood.
 For instance the doctors of 1915 there were 1,164 cases of whoop- ing cough with 149 deaths. Whoop- ing cough killed 12.S persons in every hundred who had it.
 During the five year period. from 1915 to 1919 inclusive, of those who had dipf1th eria from seven t1o ten per sons died In every hundred, the ~viru- lence of the disease varying from year to year.
 In measles something less than two persons died of each hundred.
 Tn scarlet fever, about two in each hundred.
 579 cases of small pox with one death, 8 fatality rate of less than twto-tenths of one per cent.
 Did vaccination make small pox safer than whooping cough?
 How can that be? Small pox, the doctors say, occurs mainly in unvac- cinated persons.
 Ninety per cent. of the Bridgeport Taking the figures at face value. Con- necticut experience for forty years has shown small pox among the un- vaccinated in this state. less fatal uSeaSe tnsan HiestSIcS, IuuHips, WnoOp- inc. cough and chicken pOX.
 The viruIence of small pOx varies, as that of the other diseases varies, and Connecticut may sometime have an endemic of a steT-ner sort.
 Whooping cough, for instance, in 1915, had twice the case fatality of Svhooping cough in 1919. That is, it was twice as deadly to those who had It.
 If these diseases could be duaran- | tined as small pox is their increase would be checked, and their fatality | rate in turn reduced
 Quarantine and not vaccination is | he true preventive for small pox. | W Nhooping cough is more deadly than mall pox and scarlet fever, mainly | because there is no effective isolation if the original cases
 Vaccination should not be compu1- ory.