New Britain herald., 1928-01-19
MIDDLErOWN's MENACE TO STATES HEALTH

1 New Britain In demanding compul- sorry vaccination Of all students. teachers and employees of the pub lie schools. this in order to combat the menace of smallpox from Mid dletown and Middlesex county.
 New Haven. also. has followed New Britain in enforcing vaccination of school pupils. In that city free vaccination clinics were ordered by the department of health. New Haven is especially alarmed over the fact that four cases of smallpox are being treated at the city hospital. In one manufacturing plant the entire list of 1899 employees were vaccinat- ed after 1t became known that one of the smallpox victims had been employed there.
 Such methods are essentially necessary In face of the menace of Middletown as 1t at present con- fronts the state. It is not a time for discussion of personal liberty about vaccinations: it is . condition and not | theory that confronts the state.
 That more and better legislation is necessary in Connecticut regarding the principle of vaccination was evident from the time test cases were brought in Hartford. The vac cination law is not punitive. and it has been held by a court that if the state intended the law to be punitive 1t would have provided fine. In the test case the children of Unionville parents were sent to school daily but were not admitted because they were not vaccinated. No emergency existed at the time. The parents were found not guilty of trans- gressing the law. but the school authorities retained the right to deny admission unless the children were vaccinated. The same thing could occur again, but such cases lead to the assumption that educa- tion Is sadly neglected during the process.
 The claim is sometimes made that vaccination is dangerous. A mo- ment's reflection will indicate that it is not hundredth part as dan- gerous as riding in an automobile or pedestrianizing across a congest- ed street, or walking along a coun- try highway. It is remarkable in- deed that people will become cxer- cised about the supposed dangers of vaccination while ignoring the dan gers, many of them unnecessary, that levy toll on human life all about us. Here is what Hugh S. Cumming, surgeon general of the United States public health service. has to say about the danger" of vaccination:
 'The claim is made that vac.
 cination is dangerous. The med
 ical officers of the navy have
 Naccinated since 1917. approx
 lnately three fourths of a mil
 lion persons without q death.
 edical officers Of the army
 have, during this period, vac
 cinated five and a quarter mil
 lion persons. Only one of these
 nearly six million men died dur
 ing the course of vaccination
 and this man died of pncu-
 monia. The Detroit vaccination
 figures also show that practical
 ly anyone may be safely vaccin-
 ated against smallpox. There
 were SIT ,000 persons vaccinated
 in Detroit during 1924 without
 death or serious accident. Of
 these about 800, ,0O0 were vac
 cinated in May or carly in June.
 Smallpox had constantly in
 creased up to the end of May.
 The outbreak terminated the
 latter part of July At Detroit
 hospital during this outbreak
 persons Ill with other diseases.
 newborn babies and their
 mothers. were vaccinated with
 out ill effects in any case"
 Then followed a tahulation of the persons vaccinated. including 173 mothers of newborn babies and 676 babies, one or two days old. Hum dreds of persons in the hospital snf fering from ttberculoeis, scarlet fever. diphtheria, mcsales. erysipe- las and other diseases were yaccinat- cd without injury.
 "The reason for yaccinating
 these sick persons" continues the surgeon general. was be-
 cause they were being treated
 in the Herman Kicfcr hospital. q part of which was also used as the smallpox hospital"
 0S v~ A L.