Volume 2

Public hygiene / by Thos. S. Blair[and others].

  • Blair, Thomas Stewart, 1867-1939
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Public hygiene / by Thos. S. Blair[and others]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    The medical aspect of vaccination is so well understood by the pro- fession that it is unnecessary to enter into a discussion here. All works upon the practice of medicine give pretty full data. Those who wish an exhaustive article should read the chapter by Dr. Geo. Dock, in Osier's Modern Medi- cine. The profession as a whole are fully agreed upon the efficacy of the procedure, and the anti-vaccinationists are not growing. The editor made it a point to be in Philadelphia at the time of the last convention there of these people. Their meetings evoked no enthusiasm, except among a small coterie, and the arguments were those already exposed as fallacious. Gloucester, England, was the former center of this propaganda until an epidemic of small- pox occurred, with 1,979 cases and 439 deaths. After vaccination was en- forced the epidemic rapidly subsided, and the propagandists were among the first to be vaccinated. I was in Cleveland, Ohio, about the time of its agita- tion against vaccination and the resulting epidemic. I was back there re- cently, and to state that the city is soundly converted puts it mildly. Vaccination should be performed with due regard to surgical cleanliness, and the same care should characterize the wholesale vaccination of a scare as characterizes that done in private offices. Unfortunately this is not always the case, and I plead guilty of having helped railroad a long waiting line of school children. Such mobs as sometimes overwhelm the hospital and city physicians are more the fault of orders from up higher than from the preferences of the physicians themselves. Nevertheless I have rarely seen any harm result from these flurries, and it confirms my confidence in the harmlessness of the little operation when done with any reasonable regard to propriety. The method of scarification is now a subject of discussion, and a clean but superficial incision seems to be growing in favor over the method of denuding the cuticle by scraping. When an incision is used, two or three are made fairly close together. Shields and elaborate protective devices are losing in favor. Every physician is apt to follow his own technic and succeed with it, and it impresses me as unwise to be dogmatic over the matter. Certificates vary in form, that of New Jersey impressing me favorably. It is here appended: Certificate of Vaccination , N. J. 190.... This is to certify that aged years, was vaccinated by me 190.... I personally examined said person 190. .. ., and found that said vaccination was [Successful or unsuccessful.] Signature , M. D. [Date of previous successful vaccination.] Address