CURRENT LITERATURE.
The Practitioner. November. (Macmillan.)—The editor (Dr. F. D.. Anstie) gives us in this number the second part of his article on the Vaccination controversy, dealing with the question whether the poisons of certain diseases can be communicated by the vaccine-lymph. This question is practically narrowed to one point,—can syphilis be thus com- municated? Dr. Anatie answers that a priori one would not suppose that "two poisons can be conveyed by one lymph," and that in practice the result of experiment and observation is to discredit the idea. In hundreds of cases vaccination has been intentionally performed (not in England, where, as Dr. Anstio observes, such an experiment would not have agreed with our traditions) from syphilitic individuals, and that in no single instance has the disease been communicated. It appears, again, that when a patient has been vaccinated too late, the poison og small-pox, penetrating as it is, does not enter the vesicles of vaccination.. And the particular disease in question is often simulated in such a way as to deceive even the most experienced observers. Dr. Austhe examines in detail which is of too technical a kind to be reproduced hero- the evidence in the case of epidemics said to have originated in thin, manner. His conclusion on the whole evidence is that " yea:sine-syphilis. is a bugbear and a phantom." If this be, as we suppose it is, commonly received, the doubts and crotchets of individuals, however sincerely held, cannot be permitted to interfere with the public safety.
Previous page
