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Sir J. Risdon Bennett, M.D.

No department of medical science has made greater advances in modern times than that which is termed “Preventive Medicine.” Nor is there any in which the public at large is more deeply interested, and the knowledge of which it is of more importance should be diffused as widely as possible. The devoted and zealous service rendered by the medical profession in all questions relating to the maintenance of health and the prevention of disease is a sufficient answer, if any be needed, to the ignorant and prejudiced statements that are sometimes made, that in support of various scientific theories and proceedings medical men are actuated by interested and selfish motives. No name stands, or will ever stand, out more brilliant among the benefactors of mankind than that of Edward Jenner, by whose genius and labours untold multitudes of human lives have been saved, and an incalculable amount of human suffering and misery prevented. At the present time various circumstances, both social and scientific, have combined to recall attention to this illustrious man and his remarkable scientific and beneficial labours. It is not, however, our intention on the present occasion to give either a complete sketch of his life, or a detailed account of his work. But in order to show the connection between his discoveries and more recent advances in the same field of scientific investigation, it will be necessary to give a brief resume of Jenner's life-work, and the benefits which he conferred on the human race throughout the world.

He was born on the 17th May, 1749, at Berkeley, in Gloucestershire, of which place his father was the vicar. On leaving Dr. Washbourn's school, at Cirencester, he was apprenticed to Mr. Ludlow, a gentleman in practice as a surgeon at Sudbury, near Bristol. On the completion of his apprenticeship he came to London, and had the good fortune to be placed under the care of the celebrated John Hunter, with whom he resided for two years. The observing powers and taste for natural history which Jenner had early shown, as a boy, were quickened and fostered by the daily example and friendship of the illustrious man who, as surgeon and lecturer at St. George's Hospital, was carrying on those laborious scientific investigations, and building up that marvelous monument of his genius, which have rendered his name and fame immortal. So much skill and knowledge had been shown by Jenner in arranging the natural history collection of Sir J. Banks, to whom he had been recommended by Hunter, that he was offered the appointment of naturalist to Captain Cook's second expedition. He, however, declined this and other flattering proposals, in order to return to the rural scenes of his boyhood, and be near an elder brother who had been the guide of his orphanhood. He rapidly acquired an extensive business as a general practitioner, while his polished manners, wide culture, and kind and genial social qualifications, secured him welcome admission to the first society of his neighbourhood. His conscientious devotion to his professional duties did not, however, quell his enthusiastic love of natural history, or preclude him from gaining a distinguished reputation as a naturalist. A remarkable paper on the cuckoo, read before the Royal Society and printed in the Transactions, gained him the fellowship of that illustrious body. Jenner's paper established what has been properly termed the “parasitic” character of the cuckoo, i. e., it deposits its eggs in the nests of other birds, by whose warmth they are hatched, and by whom the young are fed. His observations have received general confirmation by subsequent observers, more especially the remarkable facts that the parent cuckoo selects the nests of those birds whose eggs require the same period of time for their incubation as its own (which are much larger), and the food of whose young is the same, viz., insects, which the young cuckoo ultimately monopolizes by ousting the young of the rightful owner of the nest.

By this and similar studies was Jenner preparing his acute powers of investigation for the great purpose of his life. For this he secured more time and more extended opportunities for inquiry by abandoning general practice, and confining himself to medicine proper, having obtained, in 1792, the degree of M.D. from the University of St. Andrews. In conjunction with the “dear man,” as he used to call his great master, John Hunter, he carried on his experiments illustrative of the structure and functions of animals. With great industry and ingenuity he explained some of the unaccountable problems in ornithology; he ascertained the laws which regulate the migration of birds; made considerable advances in geology and in our knowledge of organic remains; he amended various pharmaceutical processes; he was an acute anatomist and pathologist, and investigated and explained one of the most painful affections of the heart, and many of the diseases to which animals are liable. By such labours he established a just claim to distinction as a medical philosopher, apart from his claims to the gratitude and admiration of mankind by his self-denying and devoted labours in connection with his great discovery; but like other great men absorbed in the establishing of important truths, he was regardless of personal objects, and never ostentatiously promulgated his claims to public distinction.

It was while still a youth, living with his master at Sudbury, that his mind first became deeply impressed on the subject of the cow-pox. A young country woman came to seek advice, when the subject of small-pox was incidentally mentioned in her presence, and she immediately observed, “I cannot take that disease, for I have had cow-pox.” This was a popular notion prevalent in the district, and not unknown to Jenner, but from this time he never ceased to think on the subject. On coming to London he mentioned it to several persons, and among others to Hunter; but all thought his notion of getting rid of small-pox Utopian, and gave him little or no encouragement. Hunter, however, who never liked to daunt the enthusiasm of inquirers, said, in his characteristic way: “Don't think, but try; be patient, be accurate.” About the year 1775, some time after his return to the country, he first had the opportunity of examining into the truth of the common traditions regarding cow-pox, but it was not until 1780, after much study and careful inquiry, that he was able to unravel the various obscurities and contradictions with which the subject was involved, and in that year he first disclosed his hopes and his fears to his friend, Edward Gardner. His mind seems to have caught a glimpse of the reputation awaiting him, and he felt that, in God's good providence, it “might be his lot to stand between the living and the dead, and that through him a great plague might be stayed.”

It would be impossible in the brief space at our disposal to recount the various difficulties and sources of error that Jenner encountered. It may, however, be mentioned that he ascertained that there was more than one form of local disease with which cows are afflicted, and which may give rise to sores on the hands of milkmaids, but that one only of these was the true cow-pox, giving origin to constitutional as well as local disease, and which proves protective against small-pox. He also found reason to believe that it was only in a particular stage of its development that the true cow-pox vesicle was capable of being transmitted so as to prove a prophylactic [preventive]. He was aware that though, as a rule, persons did not have small-pox a second time, yet there are instances where, from peculiarity of constitution or other causes, small-pox occurs a second time in the same individual. Such considerations as these cheered him to continue his inquiries when apparent exceptions occurred to the protective influence of true cow-pox.

Having at length satisfied his own mind, and, indeed, succeeded in convincing others also, respecting the important protective influence exerted on the constitutions of those who had received the true cow-pox in the casual way, he sought to prove whether it was possible to propagate the disease by inoculation from one human being to another. On the 19th May, 1796, an opportunity occurred of making the experiment. Matter was taken from the hand of Sarah Nelmes, who had been infected by her master's cows, and inserted into the arm of James Phipps, a healthy boy eight years of age. He went through the disease in a regular and perfectly satisfactory way. But was he secure against the contagion of small-pox? It is needless to say how full of anxiety Jenner was, when in July following he put this to the test by inoculating the boy with matter taken from the pustule of a small-pox patient. No disease followed! This, his first crucial experiment, Jenner related to his friend Gardner, and said: “I shall now pursue my experiments with redoubled ardour.” This ever-to-be-remembered day, 19th May, 1796, is commemorated by an annual festival in Berlin, where, in 1819, little more than twenty years after, it was officially reported that 307,596 persons had been vaccinated in the Prussian dominions alone. The account which Jenner has given of his own feelings at this time is deeply interesting. “While the vaccine discovery was progressing,” he says, “the joy I felt at the prospect before me of being the instrument destined to take away from the world one of its greatest calamities, blended with the fond hope of enjoying independence and domestic peace and happiness, was often so excessive that in pursuing my favourite subject among the meadows I have sometimes found myself in a kind of reverie. It is pleasant to me to recollect that these reflections always ended in devout acknowledgments to that Being from whom this and all other mercies flow.” Having obtained further corroboration of the truth of his conclusions by the vaccination of his own son and several others, he published in the form of a quarto pamphlet called “An Inquiry,” a brief and modest but complete account of his investigations and discoveries. By this the attention of the whole medical world and general public was called to the subject. His doctrines were put to the test and abundantly confirmed, so that Mr. Clive, the celebrated surgeon of the day, urged him to come to London, and promised him an income of £10,000 a year. Jenner, however, declined the request, saying, “Admitting as a certainty that I obtain both fortune and fame, what stock should I add to my fund of little happiness? And as for fame, what is it? A gilded butt forever pierced by the arrows of malignancy.”

Jenner always maintained that small-pox and cow-pox were modifications of the same disease, and that in employing vaccine lymph we only make use of means to impregnate the system with the disease in its mildest form, instead of propagating it in its virulent and contagious form, as is done when small-pox is inoculated. He felt, also, that there was this objection to the latter practice, which had obtained prevalence since its introduction to this country by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, that the disease was thus spread among the community. He had, however, at that time to contend against the prevalent notions that epidemic diseases affecting the human race are peculiar to man and have no influence on the lower animals, and that the diseases of other animals are not communicable to man. But we have now abundant evidence that both these notions are erroneous. Jenner himself, indeed, had shown what was well known in various parts of the country, that the “grease” of the heel of the horse was frequently communicated to those who had the care of horses, whether or not it was the same disease as that which affected the cow. It is sufficient only further to adduce another disease of horses, called “farcy,” which is not infrequently fatal to grooms and others, not to mention the still more dreaded hydrophobia communicated by dogs and animals of the feline species.

The rapid acceptance and spread of Jenner's doctrines speedily silenced all cavillers except that small minority of incredulous and fanatical opponents who are always to be found refusing to accept any truth that does not coincide with their own ignorant and prejudiced views. The frightful mortality and appalling effects of small-pox prior to the introduction of vaccination were indeed such as to impel men to grasp at any means that held out a probability of escape from the scourge. In the present day the public can form but a faint idea of the ravages of small-pox before Jenner's time. The records of historians, not only of our own country, but throughout the world, teem with the most appalling accounts. Dr. Lettsom calculated that 210,000 fell victims to it annually in Europe. Bernouilli, an Italian, believed that not less than 15,000,000 of human victims were deprived of life by it every twenty-five years, i. e., 600,000 annually. In Russia 2,000,000 were cut off in one year. In Asia, Africa, and South America, whole cities and districts were depopulated. Nor was it only the actual mortality which rendered it so appalling. The records of the Institution for the Indigent Blind in our own country showed that three-fourths of the objects relieved had lost their sight by small-pox, while the number of persons with pitted and scarred faces and deformed features that were met with in the streets testified to the frightful ordeal that they had passed through. Multitudes died of diseases set up by this plague, or from ruined constitutions which it entailed. And what, of all this, it may be asked, do we now see? Is it not a rare thing to meet a person whose face is scarred and his features deformed by small-pox? How few persons can cite instances among their acquaintance of those who have died of small-pox after having been properly vaccinated? Is it necessary to go into statistics and elaborate investigations of the bills of mortality of the present day in order to be convinced that, as compared with the records of anti-vaccine times, we have indeed cause to bless the memory of Jenner?

We do not ignore the fact that small-pox, like other similar diseases having an epidemic character, may be absent for a length of time from certain districts and then break out again; nor that each epidemic has its period of increment and decrement, and varies in its degree of malignancy. But a full and careful review of the whole history of small-pox since the introduction of vaccination, proves to every unprejudiced mind that every recurring epidemic finds its victims, with comparatively few exceptions, among the unvaccinated, that its spread is arrested by renewed attention to vaccination and its vigorous enforcement, and that, even taking into account the countries and localities where from various causes it has been neglected, the mortality from this foul and fatal disease, small-pox, has been enormously reduced. Human lives have been saved, and human life prolonged to such an extent that it is impossible to estimate the benefits that mankind has derived from the genius and devoted patriotic labours of one man.

That doubts and difficulties in connection with this subject, involving the well-being of the whole human race, have lately arisen, must be admitted. But there is good reason to believe that, by modern researches on the subject of epidemic diseases and the germ theory of disease, these doubts are already being dispelled, and that the difficulties will be speedily obviated.

The grounds for this belief will be understood by the consideration of those scientific investigations to a brief detail of which we now proceed. The reader will then also be better able to judge of the propriety, and necessity of certain measures which, to the uninformed, must appear objectionable or even repulsive and arbitrary.

We now, then, turn to the remarkable experiments and discoveries of M. Pasteur, which have gained for him a world-wide reputation, and the bearing of which on the science of preventive medicine is commanding the attention and admiration of the whole scientific world, and indeed we may say of mankind at large. M. Pasteur is not a medical man, nor, indeed, a physiologist. He is simply a French chemist, a modest, retiring labourer in the field of science whose sole object has been the discovery of truth, and whose chemico-physical researches gained for him the Rumford Medal of the Royal Society in 1856. Having devoted himself specially to the chemistry of organic substances, he was naturally attracted by the discovery of Cagniard de la Tour, that yeast is really a plant, a species of fungus, whose vegetative action in fermentable liquids is the true cause of their fermentation. This was so opposed to the theories of all the chemists of the day, among whom may particularly be mentioned the celebrated Liebig, that it met with their warm opposition. When, however, Helmholtz and others succeeded in showing that by preventing the passage of the minute organisms constituting the yeast plant into fermentable liquids, no fermentation took place, the doctrine soon became established that the first step in the process of alcoholic fermentation is due, not to ordinary chemical changes, but to the presence of living organisms. In like manner the putrefaction and decomposition of various liquids containing organic matter was found to be due, not to the simple action of the oxygen of the atmosphere, but to the introduction from without of microscopic germs which found material for their development in such liquids. So that if by mechanical filtration of the air the entrance of such germs can be prevented, or if by heat or other means they can be destroyed, any fluid, however readily it may undergo putrefaction in ordinary circumstances, will remain perfectly sweet, though freely exposed to the air. And the same fluid will undergo a different kind of fermentation according as it is subjected to the action of different species of germs. These and other facts of scarcely less importance, which cannot here be detailed, induced Pasteur to test the application of the doctrines deduced from them to the study of disease in living animals.

His attention was first directed to the disease affecting the silkworm, and known as the Pebrine, which at one time seemed likely to destroy the silk cultivation both in France and Italy. It had been ascertained that the bodies of the silkworm, in all its stages of chrysalis, moth, and worm, were in this disease infested by minute corpuscles which even obtained entrance into the undeveloped eggs. After a prolonged and difficult inquiry, Pasteur found that these minute corpuscles were really independent, self-propagating organisms, introduced from without, and were not merely a sign of the disease, but its real cause. As a result of the application of these discoveries, the silkworm disease has been extinguished, or so controlled as to have saved a most important and valuable culture.

Between the years 1867 and 1870 above 56,000 deaths from a disease variously designated as “anthrax,” or “carbuncular disease,” and “splenic fever,” and in France known by the terms “charbon,” or “pustule maligne,” are stated to have occurred among horses, cattle, and sheep in one district of Russia, Novgorod, occasioning also the deaths of 528 among the human population. It occurs in two forms, one more malignant and rapid in its action than the other. In France the disease appears to be scarcely ever absent, and is estimated to entail on the breeders of cattle an annual loss of many millions of francs. As a milder epidemic it has prevailed in this country, and the disease which has lately broken out in Bradford and some other towns in the north among wool-sorters, has now been shown to be a modification of the same disease communicated by the wool of sheep that have been infected.

On examining the blood of animals, the subjects of “splenic fever,” some French pathologists had discovered the presence of certain minute transparent filaments which, by the investigations of a German physician named Koch, were proved to be a fungoid plant developed from germ particles of microscopic minuteness. By gradual extension these minute particles, termed “microbes,” attain the form of small threads or rods, to which the name of “bacilli” has been given, from the Latin bacillus, a rod or staff. These rods were found to be in fact hollow tubes, divided at intervals by partitions, which, on attaining full growth, break up into fragments, the interiors of which are found to be full of minute germs similar to those from which the rods were at first developed. These germs were found by Koch and his collaborateurs to be capable of cultivation by being immersed in some suitable organic liquid kept at a proper temperature, and the supply could be kept up by introducing even a few drops of such impregnated fluids into other fluids, and repeating the process again and again. The next step to test the potency of these germs to generate the disease in animals whence they were originally obtained, was to vaccinate animals with a few drops of the fluid thus artificially infected. Accordingly it was found that the bodies of guinea-pigs, rabbits, and mice thus inoculated became infected, and developed all the characteristic symptoms of splenic fever or carbuncular disease.

Pasteur, whose enthusiasm in the pursuit of investigations which had already been crowned with such signal success kept him awake to all that was being done by other inquirers, and made him watchful of every event that transpired relative to the epidemic diseases of cattle, was struck with the fact that some of the most fatal outbreaks of “charbon” among flocks of sheep occurred in the midst of apparently the most healthy pastures. His sagacity led him to inquire what had been done with the carcasses of animals that had died from previous outbreaks of the disease in these localities, when he found that they had been buried in the soil and often at great depths, of the same pastures. But how could the disease germs make their way to the surface from a depth of eight or ten feet? Earthworms, he guessed, might have conveyed them. And notwithstanding the incredulity with which his explanation was received, he forthwith proceeded to verify his supposition. Having collected a number of worms from the ground of the pastures in question, he made an extract of the contents of the alimentary canal of the worms, and with this he inoculated rabbits and guinea-pigs, gave them the “charbon” in its most fatal form, and proved the identity of the malady by demonstrating that the blood of the victims swarmed with the deadly “bacillus.” And here we cannot but stop to notice the remarkable confirmation that is thus given to the wonderful and beautiful observations of Darwin as set forth in his last work on “The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms.” Darwin has shown beyond all dispute, as the result of his incomparable researches, that though “the plough is one of the most ancient and most valuable of man's inventions, long before he existed the land was in fact regularly ploughed, and still continues to be ploughed, by earthworms.” He has shown us that the smoothness which we admire in a wide, turf-covered expanse “is mainly due to all the inequalities having been slowly leveled by worms,” and that “the whole of the superficial mould over any such expanse has passed, and will pass again, every few years, through the bodies of worms!” It was left for Pasteur to show that these innumerable and indefatigable plowmen, whilst rendering to man such efficient service, may also be the carriers of the seeds of disease and death.

In proceeding with our brief historical account of Pasteur's and allied researches, we are arrived at the point where their analogy to Jenner's becomes manifest, and where their direct bearing on the welfare of mankind comes into view. So soon as it was known that these disease germs were low forms of vegetation, and that, like other vegetables, they could be cultivated, it was natural to ask whether, like other vegetables, their characters and properties could not be so modified as to render them at least less deleterious. Every one knows the difference between the crab-apple and its cultivated variety, the sloe and the plum, the wild and the cultivated celery. It is all the difference between unwholesome and wholesome food.

Two methods of cultivation, with a view to obtaining the desired modification of the power exercised by the bacilli and other similar germs, presented themselves, the one analogous to that really pursued by Jenner where small-pox, or the grease of the horse, was passed through the system of the cow, and then from one human being to another; and the second by carrying on the cultivation out of the living body. Both these plans have been adopted, with the result of proving that the potency of the germs can be so diminished as to render the disease produced by their introduction so mild as to be of no importance. Pasteur cultivated the bacillus in chicken broth or meat juice, and allowed a certain time to elapse before he made use of the mixture. After allowing only two months to elapse, the virulence of the germs seemed to be but little impaired, but after three or four months animals inoculated with the fluid, though they took the disease, had it in so mild a form that the greater number recovered. After a long period of six or eight months the engendered disease was so mild that all the animals speedily recovered and regained health and strength.

And now the question will naturally arise, Did animals which had passed through the mild disease thus induced acquire a protection against the original disease, if brought in contact with it in subsequent epidemics, in the same way that Jenner's vaccinated patients were protected against small-pox?

An answer in the affirmative may now be given with the utmost confidence. Experiments conducted, both in this country and abroad, by both methods of procedure, have abundantly proved that animals may be protected by inoculation so as to render them insusceptible of any form of the destructive anthrax disease.

From a remarkable paper read by Pasteur before the International Medical Congress we extract the concluding paragraph. After detailing the method pursued to obtain the requisite attenuation of the virus, and stating that by certain physiological artifices it may be made again to assume its original virulence, he proceeds: “The method I have just explained, of obtaining the vaccine of splenic fever, was no sooner made known then it was very extensively employed to prevent the splenic affection. In France we lose every year by splenic fever animals to the value of 20,000,000 francs, and even, according to one of the persons in the office of the Minister of Agriculture, more than 30,000,000 francs, but exact statistics are still wanting. I was asked to give a public demonstration at Pouilly-le-Fort, near Melun, of the results already mentioned. This experiment I may relate in a few words. Fifty sheep were placed at my disposition, of which twenty-five were vaccinated, and the remaining twenty-five underwent no treatment. A fortnight afterwards the fifty sheep were inoculated with the most virulent anthracoid microbe (or germ). The twenty-five vaccinated sheep resisted the infection, the twenty-five unvaccinated died of splenic fever within fifty hours.

“Since that time the capabilities of my laboratory have been inadequate to meet the demands of farmers for supplies of this vaccine. In the space of fifteen days we have vaccinated in the departments surrounding Paris, more than 20,000 sheep, and a large number of cattle and horses. This experiment was repeated last month at the Ferme de Lambert, near Chartres. It deserves special mention.

“The very virulent inoculation practiced at Pouilly-le-Fort, in order to prove the immunity produced by vaccination, had been effected by the aid of anthracoid germs deposited in a culture which had been preserved in my laboratory more than four years, that is to say, from the 21st March, 1877. There was assuredly no doubt about its virulence, since in fifty hours it killed twenty-five sheep out of twenty-five. Nevertheless, a commission of doctors, surgeons, and veterinary-surgeons, of Chartres, prejudiced with the idea that virus obtained from infectious blood must have a virulence capable of defying the action of what I call cultures of virus, instituted a comparison of the effects upon vaccinated sheep and upon unvaccinated sheep of inoculation with the blood of an animal which had died of splenic fever. The result was identical with that obtained at Pouilly-le-Fort—absolute resistance of the vaccinated and deaths of the unvaccinated. If I were not pressed for time I should bring to your notice other kinds of virus attenuated by similar means. These experiments will be communicated by-and-by to the public.”

The bearing of these researches of Pasteur on vaccination with cow-pox, and the whole of the Jennerian doctrines, will be evident. They throw a flood of light both on the efficacy of vaccination and the many supposed failures which have given a handle to the unscrupulous fanatical detractors of Jenner and his doctrines. They go far toward establishing the correctness of the view entertained by Jenner as to the identity of small-pox and cow-pox, showing how great may be the modifications effected in the original virus by repeated transmission, either through the animal or the human system.

But apart from the question of identity or diversity of small-pox and vaccinia, Pasteur's researches prove beyond all question that a disease virus may be both diminished and augmented in power by physiological devices, and that therefore the efficacy of the vaccine lymph may, in various ways, be so diminished as to lose its protective power, without shaking our faith in the principle of vaccination or detracting in the least from the inestimable value of Jenner's discovery. The attention of the scientific world will now be, and is, directed to the important inquiry, How far has the original vaccinia of Jenner lost its protective power? If so, how has this been brought about, and by what means can it be restored? Must we again revert to the cow for a new supply? Need we only be more scrupulous in the selection of the vesicles, and the particular stage of their development, and in the mode in which the operation of vaccination is performed? These and numerous other similar questions are now being discussed and investigated, but none probably is more important than the question how far the protective influence in each individual is dissipated by time, and hence the principle of re-vaccination is now being enforced. There can be no doubt that different epidemics possess different degrees of virulence, and what proves a sufficient protection in a mild epidemic of small-pox may not be sufficient in a more virulent one. In certain seasons and in certain conditions of the atmosphere, the human system is more prone to certain disease than at other times. Pasteur's experiments on cultivated virus or germs show that in the course of time, and in certain conditions of exposure to the action of oxygen or other agents, the vitality, or constitution, so to speak, of the germs may be so changed as materially to alter their action on the animal system. We have, therefore, scientific grounds for reverting from time to time to the heifer for a new stock, rather than continuing to rely on the perpetual transmission from one human body to another.

This is not the place to enter on the whole question of the germ theory of disease, but who does not see how wide is the field for investigation opened up by Pasteur and others? Already the application of the principle of vaccination has been successfully applied by Pasteur to a very fatal epidemic disease attacking fowls, and known by the name of “chicken cholera.” By inoculating chickens with the cultivated variety of the particular “bacillus” he has afforded to them complete protection. The economic value of this to France may in some measure be estimated by the many millions of eggs which are exported from France to this country alone. How many other diseases, such as scarlatina and diphtheria, which now carry off annually thousands of children, may not ere long be extinguished by like means who shall say? “I venture,” states Mr. Simon, in his address to the Health Section of the International Congress, “to say that in the records of human industry it would be impossible to point to work of more promise to the world than these various contributions to the knowledge of disease and of its cure and prevention, and they are contributions which, from the nature of the case, have come, and could only have come, from the performance of experiments on living animals.”

Compulsory vaccination is, no doubt, a strong measure, and one which might, in this land of individual liberty, be expected to give rise both to question and opposition. It can only be justified by proving that it is to the interest of the individual as well as of the whole community that it should be enforced. Of its propriety and necessity we believe it needs only a calm and unprejudiced inquiry to be convinced. Most of the objections raised against it are either baseless or admit of being obviated. That some of the objections are of a character that command our respect may be admitted, but mere sentiment or prejudiced and ill-founded objections, must give place to sound arguments and well-established evidence. In this, as in many similar cases, opposition and discussion open up entrances for light by which the clouds of ignorance and darkness are sure to be dispelled. But even as this whole question of vaccination now stands, the responsibility of those who are persistently misrepresenting facts and misleading the public is great, nay, criminal, when we reflect how many lives are sacrificed by the neglect of precautionary means within the reach of all.