D'03 s° a (J".) REMARKS ON "PASTEUR'S DISCOVERIES IN DISEASE PREVENTION,'' By J. Dobson, M. D., F. A. S. Copyright 1882, by J. Dobson. ti Published by thb Fairfield Job Print, P. Of Box 17, Fairfield, Coxn. Price 15 Cents, or $ 5.00 p«r Hundred. IN view of the boasted progress of evolutionary thought, and the pretensions of so-called " Modern Science", it is not a little curious to note the ratiocination and line of action adopted by many of their de- votees. The "Modern Scientist", not- withstanding his claim to emancipation from antiquated ideas, is, after all, so lar- gely dominated by hereditary barbarism, that it is almost impossible to evolve from his inner consciousness the fact that he is the victim of intellectual and philosophical myopia. He has no patience with the dog- matism and bigotry of the ecclesiastical mind. He treats with lofty scorn, religi- ous and social prejudices. Assuming the role of infallibility to an extent never drea- med of by the despotisms of the past, he seeks to dominate the public and official mind in all departments of life. He speaks and acts as though he had explored the en tire universe and wrung from Nature every secret she possessed. He assumes to have reduced the chaos of facts to a correct and orderly classification, and from his dictum tuore is no appeal. All phenomena other tliiin that explained by his hypothesis, or of which his " scientific" sense is not cog- nisant must be explained by a "scientific use of the imagination", or unmercifully ridiculed with" scientific" sarcasm, and de- clared to be beyond the range of possibili- ty. Nay, he is not content with hurling his shafts of ridicule and withering scorn at those who dissent from his "scientific" as- sumptions; but in order to silence all ob- jections to his self-constituted "authority", and crush out all opposition to his fanciful theories, he resorts to the same means he so fiercely denounces when used against himself by invoking the aid of law to com- pel acqiesence in his theories, and persecu- te all who oppose them. " Tlie common sense of the people" which, Dr. Carpenter informs us, " must in the future be accepted as an element of evid- ence in the discussion of scientific ques- tions"^ treated with unmitigated contempt, by the " Modern Scientist" who cannot escape his environment, or look over his narrow fence of sense into the world be yond. One valid objection to this self-satis- fied attitude of the " Modern Scientists ", urged by the common sense of the people is the fact that, many of their most dog- matic and positive utterances have been shown to be " scientific " humbug, mere Will-o'-the-wisps, deluding a too credul- ous public into all sorts of" scientific" quagmires. It is also our misfortune to be afflicted with a class of writers, in our popular mag- azines and reviews, who, knowing nothing of scientific facts from personal observa- tion and experience, gulp down every al- leged " Scientific discovery " and forth- with trumpet it to the world as something that is to revolutionize modern thought. The obsequesness of these writers is too painfully apparent in the current literature of the day, and is followed by disastrous results, from which even men of education and ability do not always escape. Illustrations of the above fact abound in every department of research, but more especially in that of medicine, the latest phase of which is known as "the germ the- ory", and which has received its fullest de- velopment in the experiments of Pasteur. The enthusiasm with which those experi- ments have been hailed without waiting for fuller and more complete developments, and the undue haste with which Pasteur's hypothesis has been accepted and applied to prop up the tottering fanaticism of Jen- ner and hi? followers is strikingly manifes- ted by a perusal of the current literature of the day. We are told for example that :- " It is well known too, that cows have been in- oculated with small-pox, and the resulting lymph has been used in vaccina- tion with complete success; indeed, a large proportion of the vaccine virus now used is derived from this source". The above statement is at varienc*> with the official utterances of paid Vaccinators, and imputes a monstrous crime to those who vaccinate with such virus. There is no longer any mystery about the way in which small-pox is nurtured and retained amongst the people. A disingenuous attempt has been made to credit the brilliant results of Listerism to the theory of Pasteur. Where the analogy comes in is difficult to discover. Listerism is the antipodes of Pasteurism in that it seeks to annihilate all virus, and ren ler it absolutely inert, whilePasteurism cn.'i-ates the virus with the view to modify it-* virulence so as to make it available as a prophylactic. One method, Listerism, is eminently scientific because hygienic; the oth-T unscientific and irrational, a fan- ciful illusion in the mind of the so-called discoverer. [t is not the purpose of this paper, however, to review at any length the rash and erroneous assertions of tha writers I have quoted; but rather to speak of Pas- te ar's hypothesis in relation to the Jenner- ian fanaticism; which at present is being so rudely shaken as to create considerable concern in the medical profession at the prospective loss of a fruitful source of rev- enue. The analogy between Pasteurism and Jcunerism is so close as to practically amount to an identity. Both theories pro- of. ■ 1 on the assumption which has a thou- sand times been disproved, that the body is not subject to a second attack of certain dis- eases, and that by giving the subject a mild f< >rr.i of the disease by inoculation with its vims, the body may be protected from fu- ture attacks of the malady; or, if attacked, the attack would be shorn of its vir- ulence. Never did a more pernicious error possess the medical mind. Never was a more false and wretched superstition so carefully fostered. Never was irration- al empiricism practised with more disas- trous effects. But supposing the hypothesis were correct so far as the specific disease for which inoculation is practised is con- cerned we arc at onco met by an insuper- able difficulty in ils application by tho risk of imparting other equally dangerous or more fatal diseases than that sought to be averted. If these disastrous effects should follow inoculation, its practice is criminal in the highest degree. The question then arises—Does the practice impart "spic- and-span new diseases" to healthy sub- jects ? For many years this question was met by the medical profession with a direct negative, and with all the dogmatic as- surance for which the profession is pro- verbial. The naked truth could not, how- ever, be eternally concealed. After much repression it finally broke forth, revealing a chapter of horrors, which multiplied with amazing rapidity, and made the re- flecting portion of the community stand aghast. Inquiry revealed more of the horrors so long silently and secretly en- dured; and thousands of the best citizens and most careful thinkers have been led by experience, in spite of inherited opini- ons and prejudices, to array themselves against the practice. Whether the mis- chievous effects of Jennerian inoculation are also true of Pa.vo ar's experiments i3 the purpose of this paper to show. We are told that in May 1881, "Pasteur took twenty-five of a flock of sheep and inoculated them with attenuat- ed Bacteria virus early in the month. At the middle of the month he repeated the operation on the same sheep. None of them suffered seriously, and on the last day of the month the whole fifty were healthy and vigorous. Then Pasteur inoc- ulated them all with the genuine 'charbon' poison, and predicted that within twenty four hours the unprotected twenty-five would be dead, while the others would not be affected. The next afternoon, when the observers returned to the field twenty- three of the unprotected sheep lay dead, the other two soon dying, while the others were cropping the grass as usual." The enthusiastic writer of the above with unquestioning faith grandiloquently exclaims that this experiment " points the way to incalculable blessings to humanity" A medical millenium dawns upon the hor- izon of his vivid imagination. " It may indeed" says he, "revolutionize medicine." Unfortunately for these prospective " blessings to humanity," " one swallow does not make a summer," neither does one experiment demonstrate an hypothe- sis. Pasteur's experiment has been very carefully repeated on a much larger scale, but with results very different to the above, and pregnant with disappointment and disastrous failure. The Royal Hunga- rian Ministry, desirous of putting to a cru- cial test the experiments of Pasteur with a view of determining their practical value besought a demonstration of the process before a committee of scientific experts at Budapest. M. Thullier, one of Pasteur's assistants, was dispatched " with the ne- cessary material and apparatus," and set to work, last October, experimenting on some 600 sheep and cattle provided for the purpose. A masterly resume of the experiments and results by Db. Aladar von Roszahegyi, (Lecturer on Public Health at the University of Budapest) may be found in the February and March issues of the London Practitioner. Half of the animals were "vaccinated" and " re-vaccinated" with the cultured virus, and then-the whole number, that is, both the "vaccinated" and "unvaccinated," were inoculated with the genuine charbon poi- son. The experiments established the vital fact that the so-called " vaccination " is an operation of great danger. " Of the total 317 18 (5.68 per cent.) died of anthrax af- ter the two protective inoculations, 1 (0*32 percent.) of another disease, while in 12 in- flammatory infiltration occurred at the point of injection, spreading over the whole thigh, and leading to the formation of ab- scesses as large as the fist, fistulse, and si- nuses, in consequence of which the ani- mals became lame en the injured legs."] While, on the other hand, be it remarked of the unvaccinated sheep, " only 1 (0*37 per cent. ) died during this time of anth- rax, and none of any other disease." In view of these startling facts, Db. Roszhb- gyi observes:—" It is, therefore, still to be feared that in the practice of inocula- tion, both infection with anthrax and sep- tic infection may easily, and therefore fre- quently, occur. We cannot overlook the fact, also, that after the protective inocula- tion ('vaccination '), the deaths from oth- er diseases—catarrh, pneumonia, distoma, strongylus, and pericarditis—and not those of anthrax, occurred exclusively amongst the ' vaccinated' animals. It follows from this that the fatal issue of othersevere but latent diseases is accelerated by a protect- ive vaccination." The importance of this admission ( not referred to by Pasteur) cannot be overesti- mated, and it would be interesting to learn whether Sir Bisdon Bennett and Prof. Carpenter, and others, who argue so warmly for a strict analogy between the Pasteurian inoculation against anthrax and vaccination against small-pox, are prepar- ed to follow this analogy to its logical lim- its, and proclaim with Dr. Boszahegyi, that " the fatal issue of other severe but latent diseases is accelerated by vaccina- tion " I That such is really the case, any unbiassed mind can ascertain from the British Parliamentary return (No. 433, 1877), moved for by Mr. Hopwood, M. P., which clearly demonstrates the danger of seeking to abolish disease by dissemina- ting disease.—Dr. W. J. Collins. The writer of the paper on " Pasteur's discoveries in disease prevention " in the paper from which I quote indulges in a Utopian dream of " incalculable blessings to humanity," and " the grand total bene- fit to be ours " in the conquest of scarlet- fever, diphtheria, "consumption and its allied legions." It seems cruel to dispel a beautiful illusion such as this, but the truth must be told, and Dr. Richardson, perhaps 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 up another. She would inoculate new dis- eases 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 thaught of, especially when we know that purity of life is all-sufficient to remove what exists without invoking what is not." In these well chosen words Dr. Rich- ardson exposes the craze for the insane practice of vaccination.and warns the pub- lic of its danger. Even Pasteur himself admits that pure air in respect of the oxy- gen it contains, is not only capable of at- tenuating, but also of destroying the mate- ritjs morbi of the virulent zymotic diseases- Now 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 scientific, 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'u experiments is manifest when their hi;>: on is known. We are told that the outbroaks 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 arose- 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 sanitary 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 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. But we can safely leave Pasteur to his countrymen, and already some of the ablest men in France, notably Dr. Pigeon, of Fourchambault, have exposed the tricks by which this cultivator of germs manages to palm off his bogus " protective " upon the fanners of. France and, at the same time, hoodwink the government into grant- ing him large appropriations to prosecute his so-called "researches." Pasteur, like Jenner, seeks to build a collosal fortune out of his "cultured virus," hence the fraud will die hard. After some years experience of the effects of vaccination, during which time I have seen somewhat of small-pox and its treatment, I confess that in spite of inherit- ed opinions and the prejudices created by early education, the results of my investi- gations and experience lend no countenan- ce to the pretensions of pro-vaccinators. Faibfield, Conn. , Sept. 1882, On the contrary, I regard vaccination as a powerful predisposing cause of small-pox and all other zymotic diseases. That small- pox has slain its thousands none will deny; but vaccination has slain its tens of thous- ands with syphilis, cancer, scrofula, ecze- ma, consumption, and other equally fatal and loathsome diseases. It is no figure of speech, but the naked truth that vaccina- tion has proved itself a curse to humanity, and ought to cease being enforced by legis- lative enactment. This is not my own ex- perience only, but it is the experience of a large number of competent observers the world over. Switzerland has shown us a noble example by the energetic manner in which she has frustrated the impudent attempt of a mercenary medical cabal to deprive her of her liberties and her health. Let us go and do likewise. J. Dobson, M. D.