BACTERIOLOGY AND THE WAR. 23 
OBJECTIONS TO INOCULATION. 
1. Improved sanitation is said to be the sole cause of 
the great diminution of typhoid in recent years among many 
civilized nations. This is inaccurate. Although improved 
sanitation is partly responsible, yet it cannot possibly explain 
the two facts observed independently in various countries. 
Firstly, the protected individuals contract typhoid far less 
frequently than the unprotected under similar sanitary con- 
ditions. Secondly, if the protected do contract the disease, 
their chances of recovery are much greater than the unprotected. 
2. Inoculation is injurious to health. This is also 
inaccurate. There is no doubt that several of those inoculated 
during the Boer War were severely ill for a few days after- 
wards, but in recent years, owing to improved methods, such 
ilmess is exceedingly rare, and is due to most unusual 
susceptibility. The six presidents of the Royal College of 
Physicians and of Surgeons in England, Scotland and Ireland, 
have recently stated that “with proper care inoculation 
has never been known to do a man harm.” 
Of course soldiers have died after vaccination, but there 
is no proof that they have died because of vaccination. The 
temporary illness which occasionally follows inoculation has 
been greatly exaggerated by those who will not, or cannot, 
trust the scientific men who have studied the question, or 
are unable to appreciate the valuable evidence or to realize 
the ravages in war time. 
The opposition to vaccination is almost entirely the 
result of the propaganda of the anti-vivisectionists, who are 
adepts at the art of swppressio vert and suggestio falsi. Their 
virulent opposition is largely due to the fact that they realise 
how enormously bacteriology is indebted to the experimental 
imoculation of living animals. Their present high priest is one 
Walter Hadwen, M.D., L.S.A., J.P. This amusing individual 
