A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3493, 5 March 1880, Page 2

A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION.

To the Editor of the Evening Stab.

Sib, —Haring had my attention drawn to one of vaccination notices, and the pains and penalties attending the nob* compliance of parents, I wish to give expression to my opinion thereon through you valuable columns. I consider it is a cruel wrong to compel the parents of healthy children to have them vaccinated to prevent the probable spread of one disease wh^n it is well known to be the means by which numbers of diseases are transmitted, which if not as fatal are far worse, as they often condemn the sufferers to iife long misery; secondly it.is very problematical whether it has the effect which its advocates claim for it. I remember a few years ago when the small pox broke out in Sydney, New South Wales, a letter appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald urging the authorities to make vaccination compulsory. It was. answered by one of the leading medical men in the colony who gave statistics from different districts, showing that the diseases proved fatal in more cases with those that had than with those that had not been vaccinated. He also stated that more injury had resulted from vaccinating with bad lymph, also taking it from children afflicted with various hereditary diseases than could possibly occur in the , omission of it altogether. I think myself ~ that those gentlemen who so persistently advocate this intolerable vaccination are more often influenced by monetary con* siderations than they are anxious for the welfare of the community.—l am, &c.,

PatbbfJlhimas. Mary street, March sth, 1880.