442 ' OPHTHALMOLOGY 



there would be a different world, there could hardly be civiliza- 

 tion, and yet it was a generation after farmer Jesty inoculated 

 his family from the teats of the cows in the field before even Jenner 

 dared do the same, and before the best of the profession would 

 have anything to do with it; and to-day there are perhaps a mil- 

 lion anti-vaccinationists in America! When Pasteur had demon- 

 strated what Villemin and Davaine had before said was true, the 

 bacterial origin of some diseases, history records that "the doc- 

 tors, in the great majority, were violently opposed to the germ- 

 theory of diseases. They answered experimental proof with ora- 

 tory. The less excited among them urged temporizing. The sur- 

 geon Chassaignac warned Pasteur that laboratory results should 

 be brought out in a circumspect, modest, and reserved manner, 

 etc." In 1843 our O. W. Holmes conclusively showed that puerperal 

 fever was contagious. We ignored the fact. In 1846 Semmelweiss, 

 of Vienna, independently proclaimed that puerperal fever was 

 due to inoculation by nurse, midwife, or doctor, and that this con- 

 tagion could be prevented. For this bravery and clinical acumen 

 Semmelweiss was persecuted by his medical brethren, turned out 

 of his professorship, and ruined. In the Paris Maternity Hospital in 

 1856 64 women died of the disease out of 347 admitted. In 1864 

 out of 1350 cases 310 died. At last in 1874 Former and Budin 

 introduced the "new" views of Pasteur and Lister, and in spite 

 of what Dr. Roux calls the "tyranny of medical education," they 

 were accepted, and puerperal fever disappeared. Would it not have 

 been an inestimable gain not to have persecuted Semmelweiss, 

 and instead, to have examined and tested his theory? In 1888 

 Dr. G. Martin stated that "migraine" was due to astigmatism, and 

 published proofs. In 1903 and 1904 the Medical News likens those 

 who say the same thing to Dowie and Mrs. Eddy, and the leaders 

 of the New York Academy of Medicine call a special meeting in 

 order to snuff out of existence the advocates of such a senseless 

 theory. And yet migraine is due to eye-strain, as any one can 

 prove whenever he wishes, and as thousands of patients will testify 

 whenever asked. Migraine is peculiarly a disease of civilization, 

 increased with every added hour of near-work with the eyes; and 

 civilization is enormously increasing that constant strain of 

 near-work with eyes evoluted during millions of years for a different 

 function. 



There is hardly an instance in all history of a great and bene- 

 ficent medical discovery that was not either ignored or hated and 

 scorned by the official leaders, and by the great part of the entire 

 profession. It was so with vaccination, with anesthesia, the germ- 

 theory of disease, Mendelism, thoracic percussion, ovariotomy, 

 antisepsis in surgery, the etiology of yellow fever and malaria, the 



