Biology and Medicine 443 



amusing instance of this is cited by Bennett in his "History 

 of the Panama Canal": "When it was announced that they 

 had to be vaccinated, one of their number, a voodoo doctor, 

 led a mutiny against inoculation, in which a hundred and 

 fifty took part. He pronounced it an attempt to put 'the 

 inextinguishable mark' upon them, so that they could never 

 escape from the isthmus. They declared they would rather 

 suffer martyrdom abroad than to be held captive ashore, and 

 it was only after three days of unsuccessful parleying that 

 the mutiny was broken up by their being driven ashore by 

 the police. Still protesting they were rounded up, in spite 

 of their efforts to escape, vaccinated, and the next day sent 

 to work." 3 



And yet more astonishing is the fact that much of the 

 organized opposition to vaccination should emanate from a 

 city which prides itself upon being the intellectual center 

 of America. Surely extremes have met, when so-called 

 "Science" and Voodooism walk hand in hand. 



Prior to the days of Lister, the great surgeon of Glasgow 

 and Edinburgh, the discoverer of antisepsis and the creator 

 of modern surgery, the work of the surgeon was a continual 

 nightmare. 



The condition of a patient after operation was often too 

 horrible for description. Erysipelas, lockjaw, blood poison 

 and gangrene were frequent consequences, but since the com- 

 ing of antiseptic surgery such conditions have been unknown. 

 There is nothing wonderful or difficult about the modern 

 antiseptic treatment of wounds and operations, nothing but 

 the painstaking observation of scrupulous cleanliness and the 

 careful sterilization of the wound or skin itself and of every- 

 thing coming in contact with it, but today, blood-poisoning, 

 tetanus or gangrene following an operation are virtually 

 unknown. 



In the pre-antiseptic period the surgeon dared not operate 

 upon the brain, or upon the internal organs except as a 

 desperate "last hope," for death was almost sure to follow. 

 Today abdominal operations are an everyday occurrence and 

 brain surgery is a common practise. In the olden days 

 ovarian tumors in women were left until death appeared 

 inevitable if the knife were not used, and the most famous 

 surgeon in America lost two out of every three of such cases, 

 while today tumors, weighing in some cases twice as much 

 as the patients themselves, are removed, and the death rate 

 instead of being over sixty is about one per cent. 



Prior to the days of antiseptic surgery the Caesarean opera- 



3 Bennett, ' * History of the Panama Canal, ' ' p. 124. Historical Pub- 

 lishing Company. 



