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Show SMALL-POX INJHE NAVY Tho recent revelations of an outbreak out-break of smallpox on tho battleship, Ohio must have seriously embarrassed embarrass-ed tho medical Interests that aro known to be back of the propaganda propagan-da for a Federal Department of Health. During the pnst few years vaccination vaccina-tion has been rigidly enforced in the army and navy by tho Government medical authorities. Enlisted men who wero opposed to vncclnation have been court martlalled and seni fenced to Imprisonment and dishonorable dishon-orable discharge. The plea of the sailor that ho had a right to refuse, to permit dlscaso germs to be injected in-jected Into his healthy blood, was overruled by the Federal physicians on the ground that vaccination was an established preventive of smallpox and that .the good of the' servlco demanded de-manded that.ovcry sailor be satisfactorily satisfac-torily Inoculated. The anticlimax of this campaign to illustrate tho value of vaccination a,s a preventive remedy, rem-edy, camo a few weeks ago when a smallpox epidemic occurred on the. Battleship Ohio. Twenty-eight sailors sail-ors who had previously been vaccinated vaccin-ated wero attacked by the disease, live of tho number dying. There has developed within tho past few years a marked public sen tlment against what appears to be an Insistent attempt to create state medicine in tho Federal government by means ot which, a single school ot medicine, operating through bureaus bu-reaus and departments, has been ablo apparently to force the treatment of, this school upon persons opposed to its theory and practice. Those who hold these views insist that tho smallpox epidemic on the Ohio proves ono of two things: Either Eith-er vaccination 4oos not prevent Braall pox, or "tho government medical service ser-vice was unreliable, and faulty in the, matter ofMvaccino .Inoculation.. Those who oppose tho rapid increase in-crease in departments, bureaus and permanent boards In government, on the ground that they tend to undermine under-mine democracy, point to this as a typical illustration ot tho claim that biireaucrtlc rule is always liable to becomo arbitrary and discriminatory and in time to become Inefficient. Whatever may bo said in justification justifica-tion ot this tendency, on the grounds ot efficiency, in departments of the service where there aro no contending contend-ing theories striving for recognition It would seem apparent that sweeping sweep-ing or autocratic power should not bo delegated to bureaus or officials of ono school of healing, by which they aro ablo to compel treatment opposed by other schools, and which may bo objected to by hundreds of thousands of intelligent citizens. |