OCR Text |
Show VACCINATION AND SMALLPOX IN JAPAN. ' Professor Kitasato, director of the institute for research in in fectious diseases, of Tokio, Japan, and one of-the most eminent m-Ir m-Ir ' thorities on bacteriology, gives, in the Journal of the American Med- K ical association, the experience of Japan regarding vaccination and j ;i smallpox in Japan before and after the introduction of vaccination, l,j j Kitasato says that the recent epidemics of smallpox in his country j I are not due to the ineffectiveness of vaccination, as has been claimed, but to tho fnct that Japan is surrounded by non-vaccinaled coun- ! tries from which contagion may be imported at any time, and that j i in Japan, as in j other countries, there arc a large number of ig- r noraiit and prejudiced persons who will not conform to the vaccina tion lawa. He says: "Every civilized individual of Japan knows i the benefit of the marvelous discovery of Jenner, becau.se he sees j from time U time how he himself and his neighbors are protected , from horrible epidemics. Anti-vaccinationista aro like those l j who would deny the benofit of sunshine. It gives them every kind ; of joy and happiness, and yet they are so familiar with it that they once experienced the terrible outbreaks of smallpox in their com munity to which thousands fall, while the vaccinated ones go free through the epidemics without the least danger of contagion." |