alty upon the use of impure virus. 

 And, indeed, there is no penalty which 

 can restore a child's life and health or 

 sufficiently reward it or its parents for 

 their loss. 



Is vaccination, then, dangerous? In 

 reply we can ask ourselves another 

 question, viz: Can the inoculation of 

 anything be wholly free from danger? 

 Whatever enters the blood through the 

 stomach must pass an array of senti- 

 nels which are set to detect and de- 

 stroy all that is hostile to pure blood. 

 One of the most potent of these is the 

 gastric fluid which is a powerful anti- 

 septic and destroys putrescence before 

 it reaches the blood. But inoculation 

 avoids this ' watch at the gate and 

 transmits material directly to the 

 blood. Is it reasonable to suppose that 

 such a process can be free from risk? 

 If the material inoculated it seen by its 

 effects to be impure there is no reme- 

 dy. The stomach pump will not reach 

 it, antidotes will not correct it. It is 

 already in the blood and quite beyond 

 recall. 



However, the virus furnished in this 

 enlightened 20th century is glycerin- 

 ated, sterilized, and that means its 

 disease germs, if there are any are de- 

 stroyed. Whence, then, the danger? 

 But are its disease germs destroyed? 

 We know well enough that the kine 

 pox germ is not destroyed or the virus' 

 will not "take", and it is not reason- 

 able to suppose that a sterilized pro- 

 cess which preserves one sort of dis- 

 ease germ in perfect activity is sure, 

 death to all others. And not only is 

 such a supposition unreasonable but it 

 has not the support of testimony. Jo- 

 seph Collinson writes from London 

 that all diseases produced by human 

 lymph and the simple calf lymph are 

 also produced by the glycerinated va- 

 riety. And, too, I believe every one 

 who has had experience of any extent 

 in the matter has seen results from the 

 glycerinated virus which could not 

 have taken place if all disease germs 

 had been destroyed. 



Another argument used sometimes 

 to prove the innocence of vaccination 

 is that if it were such a dangerous rem- 

 edy, the people would be up in arms 

 against it. And so they will be when 

 once they are enlightened as to the real 



nature of the process and the risk ta- 

 ken. Many years ago smallpox was a 

 much-feared disease. Not only was its 

 fatality great, but there was a disfig- 

 urement almost as much dreaded as 

 death. This fear of small pox led the 

 people to fly blindly to anything which 

 would in the opinion of anyone offer 

 them safety. Of late years, owing to 

 better sanitary conditions and better 

 knowledge of the treatment of the dis- 

 ease, it is, while not to be invited, not 

 so greatly to be feared as many other 

 diseases. Indeed, I believe that today 

 we hear of more deaths and more and 

 worse after-results from vaccination 

 than from small pox. When once the 

 people understand this they will fly as 

 madly from the remedy as in former 

 years they tried to fly from the dis- 

 ease. 



How then is it if vaccination is so 

 dangerous and the people unaware of 

 their danger, that physicians do not 

 enlighten them. Are hot physicians 

 honest in their seeming belief in the 

 innocence of vaccination? They can 

 hardly be under the circumstances. 

 They are in somewhat the fix of a cer- 

 tain bishop who, the historian tells us, 

 insisted on burning a few heretics 

 every year because the lumber yard of 

 his brother-in-law made a specialty of 

 pitched faggots. The money Which the 

 physician takes from vaccination is 

 easy money; in some States it is money 

 which the law sends them. They cer- 

 tainly should be pardoned if in the face 

 of so great temptation they are not 

 honest even with themselves. The 

 peope who place them- in so great temp- 

 tatcn should rightly bear the blame. 



What is to be done by those .who are 

 awake to the situation is a puzzling- 

 question. They do not see the right of 

 submitting to vaccination, nor do they 

 like to fight against the law — even an 

 unjust law. Bacon, I think it was who 

 said that the way to destroy the influ- 

 ence of bad books was to make more 

 books and better ones. Something like 

 that might be worked in the case of 

 compulsory vaccination. Leave those 

 laws just as they stand and add an- 

 other restraining physicians from re- 

 ceiving a fee for vaccination under 

 penalty of a $500-fine. With such a 

 law in force we could hope for the hon- 



