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Popular Science Monthly - Oct, Nov, Dec, 1915 — Volume 86 by Anonymous
page 123 of 485 (25%)
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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