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Show BBS. MILK MAID STOPS SMALL POX SPREAD Vaccination has been so successful success-ful in eliminating small pox that people peo-ple are apt to become careles and fall to make sure that they and their children are immune im-mune to that dread disease. But there still are scattered cases which might cause a serious epidemic epi-demic to develop in a community In Or. Nathan S. which there were Davis III many who had not been recently vaccinated. We are too apt to believe small pox to be such a rare disease that it is no longer necessary to adequately protect pro-tect oneself against it. It is said that during the Eighteenth Eight-eenth century In England 995 out of every 1,000 inhabitants had small pox; that one out of four who had It died. Nearly all were disfigured by the resulting scars. Most blindness was due to its ravages. While purposeful pur-poseful innoculation with small pox usually caused those so treated to have the disease in a milder form, it ' did nothing to reduce the numbers who had it. About 1790, Dr. Edward Jenner, a country doctor in England, was impressed im-pressed by the chance remark of a milk maid who said that those who acquired cowpox lesions from sores on the udders of cows did not get small pox. By questioning others, he substantiated her statement. Not thoroughly convinced, he decided to ( try an experiment and found a young boy who was willing to serve as the "guinea pig." Dr. Jenner in-noculated in-noculated this boy with cowpox (vaccinia) and after that lesion had healed, lnnoculated him with small pox. To his great gratification, the boy did not acquire that dread disease. dis-ease. He then commenced to in-noculate in-noculate his patients with cowpox and found that none of them, even though exposed to it, acquired small pox. Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse of Boston Bos-ton soon obtained some of the cow- VITAL HEALTH STATISTICS SMALLPOX IN THE UNITED STATES . 1906 6.6 PER 100,000 1938 .1 per 100,000' t pox material and introduced vaccination vacci-nation into this country. He too met with opposition and to prove his case had to publicly expose his children, chil-dren, whom he had vaccinated, to those confined with small pox in the Pest House. Vaccination rapidly rapid-ly became popular, especially aiter it was learned that Thomas Jefferson Jeffer-son had obtained some vaccine and innoculated himself and also the members ol his family. As a result of this epoch-making advance in preventive medicine, small pox has been entirely eliminated elimi-nated in areas in which all are vaccinated vac-cinated regularly. However, in many districts, the people, the doctors and the public health officers are careless care-less and many are not vaccinated. Small pox is too common in such places. Fortunately there have been no great epidemics in this country in recent years. Victor Heiser in "An American Doctor's Odyssey" shows what might happen if such laxity should spread and if the advice of the anti-vaccinationists anti-vaccinationists were followed. He tells of the special small pox hospitals, hos-pitals, that had to be built each year in Manila until universal compulsory com-pulsory vaccination was really enforced en-forced and how small pox almost disappeared when it was, and returned re-turned when it was not Remember too that vaccination may render anyone immune for only seven years.. Recently a father, fa-ther, a mother and four sons, aged 10, 12, 14 and 16, were vaccinated. The mother and father had had several sev-eral previous vaccinations but the sons only one when they were infants. in-fants. All six of the vaccinations took, showing that all had lost their immunity to small pox. Have you done your duty to your country and been revaccinated? To dig up a tree you must begin with the foot. |
