VACCINIA A REAL DISEASE.
Thus far we have chiefly dealt with vaccination as if its fault were limited to failure to prevent smallpox; but vaccination is more than an ineffective incantation. It is the induction of an acute specific disease. The prime note of vaccination is erysipelas. “The cowpox inflammation,” said Jenner, “is always of the erysipelatous kind.” He held that cowpox unattended with erysipelas was “incapable of producing any specific effect on the human constitution.” If it is supposed that Jenner is antiquated, we may refer to a distinguished contemporary. Mr. John Simon replying to the question, “Whether properly performed vaccination is an absolutely inoffensive proceeding?” answers decisively, “Not at all; nor does it pretend to be so.” The rationale of vaccination is that it communicates a mild variety of smallpox, and that with a little of the devil we buy off the entire devil. Dr. Ballard, Medical Officer to the Local Government Board, in his treatise, Vaccination: its Value and Alleged Dangers, says, “Vaccination is not a thing to be trifled with, or to be made light of; it is not to be undertaken thoughtlessly, or without due consideration of the patient, his mode of life, and the circumstances of season and of place. Surgeon and patient should both carry in their minds the regulating thought, that the one is engaged in communicating, the other in receiving into his system, a real disease—as truly a disease as smallpox or measles; a disease which, mild and gentle as its progress may usually be, yet, nevertheless, now and then, like every other exanthematous malady, asserts its character by an unusual exhibition of virulence.”