I know a druggist’s family in which all of the six children had
adenoids. Adenoids are not regarded as contagious, so far as I have
ever heard. So contagion cannot be made the scapegoat in this
instance. The children had adenoids because the mode of living was the
same for all. In like manner, when several members of a family
contract tuberculosis, diphtheria, or measles, do they not get the
disease because they all lived in the same manner and were exposed to
like influences, instead of through contagion or infection with germs?
Disease is sometimes spread, however, through the contagion of fear
and suggestion.
The opponents of vaccination and serum therapy deny that the use of
vaccines and serums has served to check the spread of disease. They
hold that epidemics are less prevalent and less virulent now than
formerly because of improved sanitary conditions, such as drainage of
the soil, municipal disposal of garbage, street cleaning, water and
sewer systems, the consequent increased facilities for bathing and
household cleanliness, etc.
A false theory of cause not only leads to a false theory of cure, but
diverts attention from the real issue. For example, in the Middle Ages
and later, in England people used to empty garbage and other refuse in
the yards and streets, and in consequence a plague broke out from time
to time. Instead of attributing it to the accumulated filth, they
accused the Jews of poisoning the wells. So, too, in the case of a
girl on whose neck a gland enlarged to the size of an egg; there was
at once talk as to whether it was tuberculous in nature. Her mother
wondered, if it was tuberculosis, if Minnie got it from the cat! She
had always played with the cat a great deal. In this she reflected
current medical talk in the papers. She could not understand how it
could happen. There was no tuberculosis on either side of the family,
and Minnie had always been so strong and healthy. Before she was
twenty-five there was nothing left of Minnie’s front teeth but a few
black snags—evidence of her having lived largely on sweets, starches,
and meat, and that she had not been healthy. But her mother never
thought of looking in that direction for the cause.
So long as people are led to believe that vaccines and serums are a
safeguard, they do not seek others, but continue to live in filthy
surroundings and to have injurious habits of living. In the mad chase
after imaginary protection, real immunity is overlooked and lost sight
of.
MEASURE FOR MEASURE
RICHARD BUTLER GLAENZER
AND ONE ANSWERED: Lord,
Of a truth, brave Lord,
I am all the follies and yet
I have sinned not blindly,
But bravely, as a man; so let
My punishment be brave,
Albeit courage win not Heaven.
_What hast thou done, brave man?_
All things that man can do, brave Lord.
_Whatsoever Hell thou choose,
That Hell is thine._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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