Decembee 10, 190".! J 



/SCIENCE 



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imperfect vaccination law, has boen from 

 ninety to one hundred times greater than 

 in Germany, where vaccination is strictly 

 required. During the Franco-Prussian 

 war the French army lost 23,400 men by 

 death from smallpox, and the German 

 army only 450. In the greater city of 

 New York, with its estimated population 

 of over 4,000,000, and in which vaccination 

 is rigidly performed, there were but nine 

 deaths from smallpox during- 1907, al- 

 though one hundred years ago the disease 

 was one of the great scourges. As a com- 

 panion picture, the well-known ease of 

 Montreal in 1885 is strikingly instructive. 

 During a period of several years vaccina- 

 tion had been neglected. Then a single in- 

 dividual, a Pullman ear conductor, travel- 

 ing from Chicago, brought the disease into 

 the favorable locality. An epidemic swept 

 over the city, and caused the death of 

 3,164 persons within nine months. It is 

 much to be feared that this case will be 

 paralleled with even more direful results 

 in England, where, through the efforts of 

 antivaeeinationists, the soil has become 

 well prepared. The antivaceinationist 

 often denies the germ theory of disease, 

 and objects to the whole modern treatment 

 of infectious diseases by antitoxins, serums 

 or vaccines, saying that they are poisons, 

 and that the proper preventives of the 

 diseases in question are cleanliness, pure 

 air and sunlight. Poisons, cleanliness, 

 pure air and sunlight are, indeed, magic 

 words, and yet the microbe is a reality, 

 not a theory. If cleanliness, pure air and 

 sunlight— and what is more expensive for 

 the masses?— have not availed, and the 

 microbe has entered or threatens to enter 

 the body, shall we leave him free to kill? 

 Antitoxins, serums and vaccines are not 

 empirical or artificial remedies; they are 

 nature's antidotes to nature's poisons, and 

 in this respect ought to be classed with 

 cleanliness, pure air and sunlight. 



While speaking of some of the.se fads 

 and foibles of aberrant mankind, I am 

 tempted to say a word about our greatest 

 popular educator, the newspaper. Unfor- 

 tunately, our newspapers, with few strik- 

 ing and commendable exceptions, are 

 pronounced derelicts in the dissemination 

 of sound scientific and medical ideas. 

 "With men of science, trained in sobriety 

 and accuracy, "newspaper science" has 

 become a synonym for the grotesque, the 

 ridiculous, the sensational and the inac- 

 curate. A justification of this on the 

 ground of unavoidable reportorial haste is 

 not to be accepted, nor can I sympathize 

 with the policy that makes an assumed 

 popular desire the excuse for filling the 

 columns with that which is untrue and fan- 

 tastic. Laboratories, clinics and hospitals 

 are daily productive of serious discoveries, 

 many of which are of inestimable value to 

 the welfare of mankind and, if considered 

 merely from the journalistic standpoint, 

 are of great interest as matters of news. 

 Yet the man on the street rarely finds these 

 mentioned in his daily paper, although he 

 has abundant opportunity to learn of the 

 frivolous and the sensational. With such 

 instruction, we can not always blame him 

 for his beliefs. The newspaper might, if it 

 would, become a great power for good in 

 spreading correct information regarding 

 scientific and medical facts and wholesome 

 ideas regarding scientific and medical 

 theories. 



The final topic of which I shall speak is 

 one that concerns the attitude, not so 

 much of the public as of yourselves as 

 practising physicians. The training of a 

 physician is one which should inculcate in 

 him the general principles of sanity and 

 good judgment. Without going in detail 

 into the qualities that make a physician 

 professionally successful, I would urge 

 upon you the very great importance of one 

 thing, namely, correct diagnosis. Avoid 



