Will it pay?: What? To vaccinate in order to prevent small pox. A very proper question is, what will prevent it? The answer is vaccination. We have unquestionable proof that it has and will. Before Dr. Edwin Jenner’s demonstration of the efficiency, one-eighth of the population of Great Britain died of small pox. Other sections of the world fared no better. Some visitations destroyed people in a way to rival influenza, whose toll of human life is fresh in the minds of every one. If we had to-day a preventive measure against influenza as well proven as we have against small pox, I believe that people everywhere would flock to avail themselves of it. Why not set ourselves earnestly to put small pox out of business?
Some persons, indeed many person, fear to avail themselves of vaccination because at times some one has an inflamed arm after being vaccinated. In justice to my fellow physicians of Transvylvania County I would say, in view of their modern methods to include complete attention to detail, clean careful vaccination is the rule. If any person vaccinated by any one of them does suffer afterwards it is due to some indescretion on the part of the patient, or if a child those in care of the case.
It is a well known fact that any injury, even a scratch from a clean pin or needle, may become infected at any time after its reception. I am just in receipt of a report from State health authorities at Raleigh that it is prevalent in 32 counties in North Carolina. Why should Transylvania county be free from an invasion? Not because our people have availed themselves of the preventive measure. There is now no quarantine in this State and people travel freely. Remember that the infective germ persists indefinitely in buildings, in bedding, in clothing, in car seats or wherever it gains a lodging. If exposed to it vaccinate at once. The incubative period of small pox is about 14 days of vaccination less than 10 days.
From the front page of the Brevard News, Feb. 25, 1921
No comments:
Post a Comment