Compulsory vaccination, antivaccination, and organized vaccination / by George Dock.

  • Dock, George, 1860-1951.
Date:
1907
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Compulsory vaccination, antivaccination, and organized vaccination / by George Dock. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    ignorant and fanatic, but more are merely ignorant. If as serious an effort were made to convert them to vaccination as is now made to turn them the other way, I believe, on the basis of some experience, that they would easily submit. Perhaps the most important objectors are quiet but influential people whose opposition has been aroused by some real or fancied injury wrought by the operation, or by the exaggerated or baseless claims of its advocates. A proper method would turn these into active supporters of general vaccina- tion. Medical writers and health officials too often follow a more arbitrary course, as shown by the following extract from a work on therapeutics excellent in most particulars: After all is said and done, the final decision of the subject [vaccination] rests with the medical profession; for, in the first place, it alone can properly interpret results. Of course, the final decision does not rest with the medical profession. Even if it did, the results should be capable of being understood by any intelligent and unprejudiced mind. Let me try to show why we need better vaccination, and how it may be secured. We are now in the later stage of a smallpox epidemic that began soon after the Spanish war, and spread over most of the United States. The exact extent and severity cannot be accurately stated. The most complete data are those of the Public Health and Marine Hospital Service, but owing to the method by which they are collected, these are necessarily imperfect. Taking the figures2 as given, however, we find the following: Smallpox Cases and Deaths in the United States. Years. Cases. Deaths. 1S99 11,136 553 1900 . . 20,362 819 1901 48,206 1,127 1902 54,014 2,083 1903 . . 40,676 1.448 1904 . 17,965 709 1905 . . . 20,099 354 1906 (first half) 8,542 53 The decline of the epidemic does not mean that the disease is being stamped out finally. It is certain that unless something more is done in the next few years than has been done before, another general epidemic will occur, or numerous local epidemics, just as in the past. The death-rate has, on the whole, been low, but this also cannot be assumed to be a general or permanent feature. At all times in the history of smallpox mild cases have been observed, and it has been known that a mild case or mild epidemic may give rise to a severe case or a severe epidemic. The view has been advanced that the recent mild type is due to hereditary immunity caused by vaccination of parents. There is