Popular Science Monthly - Oct, Nov, Dec, 1915 — Volume 86 by Anonymous
page 123 of 485 (25%)
page 123 of 485 (25%)
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he had not published his discovery."
We may in conclusion examine some of the objections to and criticisms of vaccination. The objections can be classified as those entertained (a) by medical men and (b) those by the public generally. The objections raised by medical men are now a matter of ancient history. Each generation of medical men has refused at first to admit any new teaching promulgated in its time; physiological inertia is not at once overcome. The most enlightened of Jenner's critics did really believe that he was drawing too extensive an induction from insufficient data; this was the position of the Royal Society in 1788; but the Edinburgh reviewer of 1822 should have known better. The purely technical criticisms of Jenner's work have by this time been fully assessed and replied to. It is true that at one time it was not clear what were the relationships of chickenpox and smallpox, of vaccinia and variola, of vaccinia and varioloid, of the various forms of pox in animals--cowpox, swinepox, horsepox or grease--either inter se or to human smallpox. But I do not suppose that in this year of grace 1914 there can be found one properly trained medical man, acquainted with the history of Jennerian vaccination, familiar with the ravages of smallpox and with the protective power of vaccinia, who could be induced, by no matter how large a bribe, to say that he disapproved of vaccination or that he believed it did not protect from smallpox. There are cranks in all walks of life, but the medical crank who is also an anti-vaccinationist is happily the rarest of them all. |
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