p. 253 | Shall We Vaccinate? by Martha N. Canfield

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Apr 20, 1915

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 42, No. 16.

Shall We Vaccinate?

By Martha N. Canfield

Sympathy for Mothers Who Oppose It—Their Fears May Be Allayed

By MARTHA N. CANFIELD, M. D.

You mothers who are harrowed over having the children vaccinated, have my sympathy. Of course you feel that you, rather than the legislature, have the right to decide concerning this question.

But you must not forget that smallpox was once a formidable disease, and that occasionally yet it appears in a virulent form. Smallpox once swept this country and Europe with frightful epidemics, claiming its multitudes, and leaving in its wake those disfigured, maimed, and often blind or deaf, for the remainder of their lives.

How Vaccine Was Discovered

Finally, about the beginning of the eighteenth century, a British physician named Edward Jenner discovered that milkmaids who had cowpox, a disease communicated by infection of their hands from the cow, did not have smallpox. Using this as a basis of investigation, he proved the value of vaccination. A young boy was first inoculated, or vaccinated, with cowpox lymph. Six weeks later, he was vaccinated by the use of smallpox virus; and as Dr. Jenner predicted, the boy did not take smallpox.

A Boston Physician Experiments

A Dr. Waterhouse, of Boston, is said to have first brought active vaccine virus from England and vaccinated his family. A few months later, he permitted two of his children to visit a smallpox hospital for the purpose of testing their immunity. They did not take the disease.

Since the days of Jenner, vaccination has been widely practiced, in spite of continuous opposition.

A method first used was the transfer of virus from one individual to another; but a possibility of transferring disease led to the abandoning of this method.

The Care in Preparing Vaccine

Whenever I hear a mother say, “I do not want that poison stuff put into my child’s arm,” I think of the visit I paid to an institution where vaccine was manufactured. The remarkable care used to have a perfect product has forever removed from my mind any prejudice against smallpox vaccine. Healthy young calves were used to obtain the serum, and every step in the work was done with aseptic precaution. After the serum was obtained, the calf was killed, and a microscopic examination of its tissues was made, to be sure these were healthy; and finally, a test was made from every “batch” of the inoculating fluid, and its reliability was not established until all this was done.

You may have noticed that there is only a tiny bit of the vaccine fluid in an air-tight tube. It is designed to produce but a mild indisposition; and if it does not make the child a little sick, then it does not “take,” and he is not protected from smallpox.

The point I want to make is, that there

are other sources than the vaccine to cause trouble in the matter of vaccination. The physician may be careless in his work. His own hands should be clean. The place vaccinated, which is on the upper outside of the left arm, should be thoroughly cleansed. A sterile dressing—cheesecloth will do if it is sterile—must be secured in place over the point vaccinated. This had better be held on by surgeon’s plaster, in order that it shall not slip off. The child must not touch this with his fingers, lest he introduce germs. Careless handling of the wound has produced many cases of so-called “blood poisoning,” bringing vaccination into disrepute.

By the way, the New York State department of health has investigated those cases of death reported to be caused by vaccination, and the death certificates of the attending physicians revealed that not one of the deaths was remotely connected with vaccination.

One Failure Through Carelessness

A case is reported of a young boy who had been vaccinated and was wearing a mask over his arm. One day when he was engaged in a game of ball, the mask troubled him, and he laid it on the ground until the game was finished, and then resumed the mask. In the course of a few days, he died of lockjaw due to the tetanus germ introduced from the ground through the mask.

Over Three Million Successes

The story of the cleaning up of the Philippine Islands is an object lesson for all time. It ought to prove conclusively the value of vaccination; for over three million people were vaccinated, without the loss of a life or a limb, and six thousand lives were saved annually from death by smallpox.