The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1871.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2711, 25 October 1871, Page 2

The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1871.

Wb noticed some time ago that there was drifting about on the troubled ocean of Wellington politics a “ Yacu eination Bill.” What has become of it we are unable to say, but we should imagine that this measure ought hardly to have been suffered to drop quietly out of sight—if this has indeed been its fate. Of course, we do not suppose that such a trifling matter as the public health could for a moment be considered as equal in importance to those I’eailly great questions which occupy the legislative mind to so large an extent, and more particularly the all-absorbing one—Who are to occupy the Government benches 1 But we do hope that a few spare minutes may be available before the

close of the present session for the passing of this Bill. It seems to us to he a very good one—free from all the objections which have been very plausibly urged against a truly compulsory Act. The great engine to be employed, if this Bill should become law, for rendering vaccination a general practice is “ moral suasion. No penalty, properly so called, is to be enforced against parents who neglect to have their children vaccinated, but the Governor is to publish from time to time documents showing the advantages to be derived from the practice. At the same time, ceitain privileges are to be witheld from unvaccinated persons. No one who has not been vac cinated is to be allowed to attend a public school, or to hold any public office whatever. Every facility is to be offered, gratis, to persons who wish to avail themselves of the services of the Public Vaccinator, an officer to be appointed and paid by the Government, while a register is to be kept of all children who have been successfully vaccinated, exactly in the same way as the register of birth, deaths, and marriages. Our readers are no doubt aware that a very strong feeling has been gradually gaining ground at home against the practice of vaccination, we think without any good reason. There is a tendency in the human mind to under-rate past dangers, and to think that misfortunes which have been obviated by certain precautions might not have happened even if those precautions had not been used. Again, people, and above all British people, are wont to recalcitrate strongly against anything they are forced to do, and so strong does their disgust against this compulsion become, that their minds at once set about seeking for proofs that the course they are compelled to adopt is unnecessary and absurd. To these two idiosyncrasies wc attribute the rise and progress of the Anti-vaccination agitation. With regard to the first, it seems to us that no one who has passed middle life can fail to have noticed the difference between the appearance presented say by a congregation of people of forty years ago and that hy one of the present day. He will remember at once, when his attention is called to the fact, that at the time of which we speak, before vaccination became pretty general, that a large proportion of the people had faces more or less pitted with the small-pox, while not a few were dreadfully seamed, scarred, or even totally blinded by the same fell scourge. At the present day we all know that it is only comparatively rarely that a person is to be seen who shows any signs whatever of having had the disease at all. Tin's one fact ought by itself to be sufficient to prove to the most sceptical that a very dreadful disease has, by one means or another, been robbed of most of its terrors; and a man’s powers of unbelief must be very considerable indeed, if he can attribute this change to anything but vaccination. There are, however, very few people Who would seriously say in so many words that smallpox has not been very much brought under control by the use of the vaccine virus; they merely allow themselves to be unconsciously swayed by the feeling we have mentioned above. The real open opponents of the practise of vaccination take altogether different ground. They admit all that is said about the power of the vaccine virus to modify the smallpox in a large majority of cases ; but they think that on the whole more harm than good results flora vaccination. They lay that there are other animal poisons n the world besides the one in question, and that these poisons can be, and are, introduced into the blood by the operation along with the vaccine virus. They also declare that since the cow-pox has been in general use as a prophylactic against small-pox, the decrease in the mortality from that disease has been accompanied by a corresponding increase in the deaths resulting from measles, diptheria, and scarlatina. Undoubtedly there is some truth in both of these statements, but not very much. It is certain that bad diseases have been communicated to children in the way indicated above, but we must say that we never in our own experience knew of an instance of the kind, and believe that most nonprofessional persons would say the same thing. It appears probable that such a deplorable event can only be caused by the most culpable carelessness on the part of the vaccinator*, and is altogether quite an exceptional occurrence. With regard to the second objection, it is sufficient to say that a certain proportion of children are born without vital power sufficient to carry them through the various ailments to which childhood is subject, and that if smallpox, which was formerly the principal means of carrying off such unfortunates, has been deprived of the greater part of its power, it is only reasonable to suppose that these children will fall victims to some other disease. Thus, we ; believe, tfye increased mortality produced by the diseases above mentioned

is to be accounted for. At the same there can be no doubt that numbers of people, both children and adults, have been carried safely 1 through these minor diseases, who would certainly have succumbed to the more terrible small-pox, if they had been attacked by it. It may seem to many rather unnecessary to say much about this matter, as small-pox does not exist amongst us, but if they remember that the disease may be introduced amongst us at any moment almost, our calling attention to the subject will hardly seem out of place.