STATE DAIRY ASSOCIATION. 617 



Is there no help from these troubles? Must we simply stand aghast 

 at the awful spectacle of forty per cent, of our population dying of these 

 bacterial diseases? Legislation touches every part of our transportation 

 system and the most extreme measures are taken to prevent disasters by 

 sea and land. In most States pure-food laws regulate fatalities produced 

 by the dangers of impure food. Crime of all sorts, punishable in a degree 

 comparable to the extent with wliich it interferes with life, or even prop- 

 erty of the offended; but what looseness characterizes the part our State 

 or local authorities take in diminishing this 40 per cent, of deaths due 

 to bacterial diseases. Death from these is not a visitation of Providence, 

 but the actual consequence of dirt and filth on our own part or by our 

 unfortunate associates. I am tempted to say, like another, "Rouse, ye 

 slaves, resist the tyrant." But. alas! we all suffer and are silent. This 

 is not indicative of patience. Imt ignorance, and that of the most criminal 

 sort. 



We owe to the untiring zeal of a few scientists the possibilitj' of 

 relief we now enjoy, and I am confident that as the result of an educated 

 public sentiment in this direction and by the use of remedial agents 

 placed in our hands we can say ^ttith Frankland that the time will come 

 when in our large cities men will no longer die of diphtheria, scarlet 

 fever and smallpox, than they now perish in these places from the teeth 

 of wolves and the venom of snakes, Avhich civilization has driven back. 

 Vaccination, discovered by Dr. E. .Tenner in 170G, yet not by him un- 

 derstood, is now universally practiced. The secret of vaccination, the 

 operation practiced for prevention of smallpox, means the introduction 

 into the system of the bacillus of this disease, after it has first been 

 weakened or robbed of its destroying power by passing through an ox, 

 which is immune to smallpox. This bacillus in the system forms from 

 its action on the blood antitoxine that persists in the body from 7 to 14 

 years and forms an antidote for any future toxine that might be pro- 

 duced by the smallpox bacillus taken into the system through the ordinary 

 channels of infection. 



It is a matter of common observation that a large number of con- 

 tagious diseases, like scarlet fever, chickenpox, etc., are not liable to 

 recur in the same individual. This is )>ecause of the presence of specific 

 antitoxine that remains as an antidote for the toxine that may be intro- 

 duced in the system in future years. Its protection varies with each 

 disease and the condition of the patient. Yet in most epidemics it is 

 sufficient to prevent a recurrence iit least during the same siege. Some 

 plant diseases are produced by microbes— pear blight, potato rot, olive 

 rot, carnation blight, sugar beet disease, cucumber wilt and the sorghum 

 blight are among the troul)les encountered in this direction. 



There is a brighter side to this subject. Not all bacteria are harmful 

 or work to our woe, a large number are most useful and some are Indis- 

 pensable to our daily existence. Among the most important are the so- 



