Remarks on "Pasteur's discoveries in disease prevention" / by J. Dobson.

  • Dobson, J., M.D.
Date:
[1882], ©1882
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on "Pasteur's discoveries in disease prevention" / by J. Dobson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    perhaj?s the most celebrated hygienist and sanitarian living, told it at the recent Pub- lic Health Congress at Brighton, when, referring to Pasteur's hypothesis, said :— Science, is in the main useful, but is sometimes proud, wild, and erratic, and has lately proposed a desperate device for the prevention of infection's perils. She proposes to prevent one peril by setting j up another. She would inoculate new dis- eased into our old stock, in the anticipation that the new will put out the old. I pray you, be not led away by this conceit. This manufacture of spic-and-span new diseases in our human, bovine, equine, ovine, canine, and perhaps feline species is too much to endure the thought of, especially when we know that purity of life is all-sufficient j to remove what exists without invoking what is not. In these well chosen words Dr. Rich- j ardson exposes the craze for the insane ptaotlOB of vaccination and warns the pub- lic of its danger. Even Pasteur hinisolf admits that pure air in respect of the oxy- gen it contains, is not only capabl 3 of at- teuuating, but also of destroying the mate- riel morbi of the virulent zymotic diseases. jSow I contend that the fact of danger- ous and fatal diseases being imparted by inoculation and vaccination is fully estab- lished, and therefore, to continue to inoc- ulate healthy bodies with the virus of dis- ease is a serious crime as well as a colossal blunder. Sanitation and personal hygiene are, I contend, the natural, all-efficient, and therefore scieD tine, means by which all zymotic diseases are to be prevented. Proof of this is found in the non-suscepti- bility of the healthy and robust to the in- fluence of attenuated or cultured vi- rus; and it is' only when the vital stamina is lowered by any means that it can take effect. In vigorous health and equilibri- um of the conditions of life we have the most potential of all disease-resisting pow- ers, and it is on the maintenance of these, and not on vaccination, that our safety de- pends. Even Pasteur himself admits this. The unscientific character of Pasteur's experiments is manifest when their history is known. We arc told that the Outbreaks of 'charbon' were enshrouded in mystery, which Pasteur questioned, and found that where carefully secluded flocks were at- tacked with the disease, there had been many years before an epidemic of the same disease,, the victims of which had been bur- ied under the pastures where the disease broke out afresh. The question aroso- What resurrected the Bacilli that produced the disease? ' Earthworms' said Pasteur, and so it proved. Forthwith inoculation is conceived and brought forth as the pan- acea for this calamity. No attempts are made to secure a more s; ni'ary disposal of the dead by cremation instead of burial ; and no attempts are made to destroy the living Bacilli so that future epidemics may be prevented. But instead of this, Pasteur set to work to propagate, cultivate, and in- oculate with these disease-producing mi- crozymes; and when it is borne in mind that the general employment of protective inoculations would spread anthrax micro- zymes in inconceivable numbers through- out the whole couutry, I can readily con- cur in the opinion of the committee of in- vestigation that, the immediate general application of Pasteur's method in the form demonstrated would be precipitate, and that it should least of all be recommended and disseminated under the authority of the State, and further, that by strict sanitary regulations in regard to animals attacked by anthrax, and to their dead bodies, much might be done to prevent the I increase of anthrax and spread of the dis- ease. These practical and shrewd observa- tions of the committee are an excellent re- ply to the sweeping assertions of Pasteur and his dupes, and they are equally applic- able to the adherents of Jennerism which, for all practical purposes, is identical with Pasteurism.