VACCINATION.

By WM. JEFFERSON GUERNSEY, M. D., Philadelphia.

It is not the purpose of the writer to combat the question of the prophylactic powers of vaccination. Reliable statistics prove (?) that it is a preventive of variola. Equally responsible information shows that it is valueless. Vaccination is here objected to solely on principle. It is disgusting; unreasonable because of doubtful efficacy; unscientific in introducing into a healthy system a poison to prevent a disease which that person may never be exposed to or susceptible of; septic; unclean.

It has been aptly said that, if vaccination was believed in by those who practiced it, quarantine would not be required. If the vaccinated are immune, why keep them away from the disease?

In a recent conversation with a very good prescriber the writer was astonished to learn that he not only vaccinated continually, but that he had never questioned the advisability of it. On the other hand, there are thousands of laymen who know of ill effects having arisen from it, and who only submit to the assumed authority of the various health boards in order to get their children to school.

We have all seen baneful results from this virus. Any physician who denies this fact makes an acknowledgment that he has had meager practice. If we do not thus transmit scrofula, syphilis, or phthisis, we are liable to.

There are many conscientious physicians who do not know of any other means of preventing the disease who are nevertheless opposed to vaccination; who know that the credit given to the scarcity of variola is not wholly due to it; who are aware of the fact that all pestilential diseases appear in unaccountable waves and that very much praise should be attributed to improved sanitation.

Homeopaths know that there are other and safer, if not better, preventives. Certain internal medicines are prophylactic, and it is to demonstrate this fact that this paper has been written. Vaccininum (a potentization of the virus beyond its toxic force) is used by some; variolinum (similarly prepared from the actual morbific product) by others; and, best of all, malandrinum (which is more homeopathic because "similar," though not of the same) is evidently effectual in preventing the disease and is known to cure ill effects of vaccination-will prevent vaccination from "taking."

The writer has for years refused to vaccinate.

The inoculation with a potency of variolinum has been sufficient to allow of signing the schoolboard certificates; and, as a preventive, malandrinum internally has been relied upon. During an attendance upon the only case in this part of the city within the past dozen years that remedy was used solely as a prophylactic, and without failure.

of its possible inefficiency; considering the probIn view of the actual dangers of vaccination; able power of malandrinum; and bearing in mind the wrong which is done to the people we are bound to protect (vaccination being practically compulsory), it is high time to give this desirable substitute a hearing.

Variola is not the only dread disease; it is not even the worst; not the most fatal. If it can be prevented by an inoculation with its own virus so can others; so may all. Why, then, select this when it is not prevalent? It is apparent that inoculation against all ailments cannot be wise. It is a violation of the Constitution of the United States (which forbids bodily mutilation) to require this.

There may be some who are unfamiliar with the nature of malandrinum, and to these the following information is offered. In the disease of horses known among veterinarians as grease there appears a discharge which, when conveyed to the udder of cows by careless milkers, produces an eruption almost identical with the pustules of variola. This was erroneously called malanders (from a closely related dry disease), and from it has come to us the name given to the morbific product under consideration, which, when potentized, becomes homeopathically a preventive of the similar disease. Not, like vaccination, an isopathic preventive of the same malady. This remedy should be given internally, probably once a day for a week. It may be procured from any of the homeopathic pharmacies.

Readers of this are requested to return an answer to the following questions at early convenience, so that a compilation may be made of the honest opinion of all who are sufficiently interested. Merely give the number, with the answer. Full credit will be given, and the result will not be published unless a desirable number of responses are received.

1. Waiving the question of its efficacy, do you believe vaccination to be unsanitary?

2. Have you ever prescribed malandrinum as a preventive?

3. Have those to whom you have given it been subjected to a possible contagion with variola? 4. Have you met with any failures?

5. Have you used it for the ill effects of vaccination?

6. With what result? 4340 Frankford Ave.

THE DECADENCE OF THE FAMILY PHYSICIAN.

One of the Chicago papers-the Tribune, as we call it now, has been giving some attention to the Family Physician, who is supposed to be fading out and being supplanted by the Special

ist.

Another paper-possibly the Chicago American-we have no immediate access to these jounals-prints, or reprints, a statement by Dr. W. Tod Helmuth, in which he declares that the day of the family doctor is rapidly waning. Dr. Helmuth has always been a surgeon of the surgeons, and it is possible that he views the matter wholly from a surgical viewpoint. It is not a fact, however, that the general practitioner is dying out either as a class or as an individual. If statistics ever amounted to anything, it could be shown that the general practitioner is coming in" again, and with far more éclat than ever before. It is the tide of surgery which is subsiding! The public feeling has veered about so that, at least in our City of Cleveland, many of our best physicians are losing their hold on the community, because of the reputation, "if you send for him, he will be sure to find something to cut." Again, the college output of recent years has unloaded a vast and increasing horde of young men and women, who are only too eager to emulate the older heads and hands in doing the most difficult of surgical work. So that for these, and other equally well-known reasons, the fad for cutting is not up to its pristine, nor even up to its most recent high-water mark. And because of his scarcity, as in other matters commercially and otherwise, the general practitioner, who knows a knife, and when to use it, but does not have it always in his fist, is taking his innings. Instances in point: one of our foremost Cleveland homeopathic physicians-and not in the college either-cleared twenty-three hundred dollars during the month of January! This man never touches anything but his medicine case. Then we have a prominent surgeon,-none older, more experienced, nor better than he,who is gaining a larger reputation than ever, by his conservative work, and his frequent recommendations NOT to cut, but the rather to apply the therapeutic measures so well known to the homeopath. Dr. Pratt once said, some years ago, in Baltimore, we think it was,-that there was no danger of the general practitioner ever being without work; that poor suffering humanity would always need his ministrations.

Surgery and its many-sided offshoots-the specialties is to be credited with a vast array of wonderful achievements; but surgery, far more often than general practice, has its metes and bounds. Not every case that is operated

upon gets well; nay, does not always get even better than before the operation. Instance: the T. F. Allen cases. Stripped of its dazzling appearance, its mummery when properly arrayed, and surrounded with effectiveness of display friends, what is it but a mechanical device of the upon the poor to-be-maimed patient and his most ordinary pattern? Having sawed off one leg, the novitiate is prepared to saw off any number of other legs. Having taken out one set of ovaries he is prepared to take out ovaries by the dinner-plateful ever after; in each case the operation is practically similar. In time as each surgeon introduces his own technique, or speculum, or scimeter knife, or Moslem-headdress, the sawing off of a leg, or the taking out of an ovary, may be made a little easier and less hazardous; but it is still the same anatomy worked upon, and the same mechanical knowledge that is called for.

The general practitioner, however, who mingles daily with his patients, and has done so for years, finds no two cases ever alike. He stands far more often with the imminence of death upon him than the surgeon. The day does not close upon his labors in which he has not had a hand-to-hand combat with Life's chiefest enemy. The skill requsite for such daily and hourly encounters does not rest upon the peculiar handling of a new kind of instrument, or the use of newly imported Made-inGermany antiseptics. Surely, in general practice we find the place for the Individual Initiative; for here a man must have the Napoleonic twoo'clock-in-the-morning courage; he cannot take three or four days of time to read up on this or that peculiarity, in the latest journals or books of the specialists. He must bring his knowledge with him and have it where he can lay hands upon and use it at an instant's notice. The successful treatment, let us say, of typhoid fever, and diphtheria, in the malignancy with which the profession meets these diseases so often, ist far more difficult and hazardous than the taking out of the uterus with the entire circle of adnexa and attachments. The "common-people" still reckon only from the standpoint of apparent difficulties. It is a reversion of type to believe that brute-strength, and over-coming with sword and fagot, and the shedding of blood, is the highest type of power, and courage, and glory. Still, having said, and saying these things, we will not suffer anyone to accuse us of malfeasance to a large part of the medical profession, our foremost surgeons,-for we number the best and the most skillful of these among our personal and professional friends; and yet no one knows better than these very foremost surgeons-with that grand man Helmuth in the front rank-that we have spoken

If there be such a prejudice against materia medica as Brother Kraft would have us believe, -but of which we are not convinced, is it not because the teachers and self-styled champions are so dogmatic, so mystical, and so self-righteous that no company but their own is congenial? Homeopathic materia medica is often taught and paraded in public so that no one but a mystic or a disciple of Blavatsky can understand it. Its champions are constantly denouncing as heretics anyone who has the temerity to disagree upon some pet theory or indulge in new speculations or fresh mental diet. Again, if a humble member of the profession happens to display a natural mechanical skill and follow into surgery the innate strivings of his nature, he is relegated to the outer darkness as a man of blood, or if pathology be his longing-why, that is foolishness.Medical Counselor.

Now this is real alarming! So it is the mystical Blavatsky-like teaching and walking that has produced the present-day lameness in homeopathic medical practitioners; and it has not been the fact that out of thirty chairs in a modern school only two or one is given over to the dissemination of homeopathy, while all the rest and singular are plugging away at some form of mechanical medicine. The Editor of the Medical Counselor has been woefully blind if he has not noticed the fall-down of homeopathy from its former estate. And the mysticism put forth as the cause will not hold water for one minute. The trouble is, and the Medical Counselor must and does know it, that homeopathy has been made an adjunct professorship in many of our schools -or was until quite recently-for a change is coming over the spirit of the dream, and here and there over this broad land champions are springing up who will defend our ancient birthright and cause Homeopathy once more to blossom as the rose. Wonder if the editor has any knowledge of the Combination Tablet home

opathy; of the Pix Creosole homeopathy; of the Arsenauro and Mercurol homeopathy; of the Serum-Therapy homeopathy; of the Twentyper-cent-dividend-paying homeopathy; of the Modern homeopathy (limited)? The champions of good homeopathy are not constantly denouncing as heretics anyone who has the temerity to disagree upon some pet theory or indulge in new speculations or fresh mental diet. That is a leaf taken out of the profession of, say, fifteen or twenty years ago. To-day that is not true! The true homeopaths are as tolerant as the guild of the knife-perhaps even more so. And we number many, many good homeopaths among the Brethren of the Scimitar, the Scalpel, and the Speculum. We do not assail the young man who who has innate strivings and natural mechanical skill. We commend him to follow his bent. We ask the editor if he ever knew a young medical student who didn't have those innate strivings and that mechanical nature as soon as he got the seat of his hard bench warm? If he ever knew of one, himself not excluded, that wouldn't soldier on everything in the curriculum except to view a naked body being sliced or gouged or unsexed? We read in the blue-and-gold college announcements of the many tables of operations done and of the advantages in a surgically-clinical way. But where do we read of the table of typhoid fevers or diphtherias visited and cured?

Dr. Seldon H. Talcott's new book is before us, and it proves to be a treasury of homeopathy and good practice. It is cast in the lecture form, and partakes of that free and at times breezy style of talk for which Talcott is so justly famous, not alone with his many classes, but with his professional brethren everywhere. His description of the anatomical parts concerned in his specialty is clear, interesting, and attractive. His description of the proper treatment of Mental Disorders, inclusive of medicines and other measures is of the best in his specialty—and he is master in his art. There have been many other books written upon this specialty, but we question whether any of these can stand close up to Talcott for quick

interest and sustained attention. For we all know, those of us who successfully passed the ordeal of the white-hot plowshares, our medical and college exam.,-that there is no other topic, unless perhaps of Eyes and Ears, that gives the undergraduate so much concern as this of Mental and Nervous Diseases. And a man who can make music of this specialty, and attract the students who are mostly determined to be fivehundred-dollar-a-clip gynecologists as by first intention, is a man who should write our books; because he can save us from nihilism and allopathy. Dr. Talcott has been known of the profession for years as a straight and upright homeopath. His record as Superintendent of the Middletown Insane Asylum is world-wide and most creditable. We hope now, most sincerely, that our homeopathic colleges will no longer recommend old-school text-books when Talcott's book is to be had. And in this respect of sinning against the canons of homeopathy we have recently learned of the guilt and defection of an alleged friend of homeopathy who has recommended and insisted upon his classes buying a work by an allopathic author-although, even before the appearance of Talcott's, there were other good homeopathic books on Nervous and Mental Diseases. Let us give front place to homeopathic authors in our homeopathic colleges. We welcome Talcott's new book; we bespeak for it a wide circulation for its intrinsic merits, as well as for its bold and honorable upholding of the homeopathic doctrine.

Correspondence.

American Homeopathist:

The March 1st number of American Homeopathist contained an article “A Half Century of Practice," wherein the name of the late Dr. Okie of Providence, R. I., is spelled "Oakey." I was greatly disgusted to see the name of that grand and uncompromising disciple of Hahnemann distorted. During the years of 1849 and 1850 I was in the office of that glorious man and true homeopath, and I know how to spell his name, and desire you to make the proper correction-Okie. The name of Okie deserves to be written in letters of gold. There was never a more successful and ardent advocate of true homeopathy than Okie. He followed the teachings of his preceptor, Dr. Hering, with implicity and fidelity.

Sincerely yours,

C. A. Jæger. P. S.-I think Dr. Adam Müller of Chicago is

the oldest homeopathic physician in the U. S.yes, in the world. J.

-I have been a great lover of Mellin's Food from the beginning of my practice, for it was with this staple product that I broke through that iron-bound rule, inculcated in me by my earlier homeopathic teachers, of giving nothing to any patient but a single dose of the high potency and "wait"! I had a little baby to care for that was progressively losing flesh, notwithstanding that it was nursed more than ordinarily allowed. The mother was a large woman, whose breasts were overfilled and overrunning. Still that little fellow was hungry-he cried in the continuous, peevish way that we sometimes attribute to earache. I tried all my remedies in due and ancient form, but failed of any, even the most fleeting, success. An elderly lady from the neighborhood --and what would the medical young man be without her timely aid and assistance-hinted one day at hunger as an exciting cause. Bless my heart! I fell in with her suggestion in a minute; and as I was graduated before the testing of milk for bacteria and worms and the like was a prize performance in a medical school, I didn't bother about that, but got a bottle of Mellin's Food and interpolated that as one feeding between two feedings from the maternal breasts. It was a revelation for sore eyes to see that youngster "bite" into the new food, and presently to see him curl up and go to sleep contentedly! And from that day to the present I have been a warm friend of Mellin's; and while other foods may be as excellent, and I give way to the family or the nurse or the consulting physician and try some other food; unless the result is excellent and prompt I soon get back to Mellin's, and have never yet had occasion to regret my exceeding predilection. When I add that my own children are Mellin's Food babies, it may be gathered that I recommend the food as highly as possible. I have added one other use to the advertised one. I make an invalid food of it. In my convalescent cases, from any and, indeed, almost every disease, I put the patient upon a cup of Mellin's Food for two or three means a day, for week or longer. This reminds me to add that I have also made it an excellent substitute for coffee and tea when cold water, or cold or boiled milk, or the insipid cocoa, or the rich and constipating chocolate will not fill the long-felt want at breakfast. I have sometimes felt like clipping out of my Saturday morning's paper, with its array of cured-hero pictures, those well-written advertising columns depicting and denouncing the use of coffee, but instead of the usual red-fire and slow curtain to substitute my recommendation of Mellin's Food.

Globules.

-Dr. H. F. Biggar has performed his 1320th laparotomy. How is that for a good record?

-Dr. A. M. Linn of Des Moines has been elected a member of the State Board of Health.

His local paper speaks of Dr. Linn in the highest degree of praise, in which we all of us join most heartily.

-A facetious and witty contributor to the Hahnemannian Monthly proposes to introduce a luminous paint for the golf balls to be used at night time at Richfield Springs. The idea is a bright and scintillating one; but not original. This same luminous paint was exploited in a re

"literary" magazine, and much better done than in the Hahnemannian Monthly and now, if we can get the "liege-halle" and the luminouspaint men to prove their patents and give an exhibition at Richfield Springs prox., it will add enough additional interest to the meeting to draw a big crowd, and possibly thus make amends for the change from Niagara Falls.

-Dr. C. E. Fisher has opened a very complete suite of offices in Hyde Park, corner Fifty-third Street and Lake Avenue, with a city office with Dr. E. H. Pratt. Dr. Fisher finds himself in very much better health than before his selfexilement in Cuba, and feels confident that he will be able to attend to his professional work with his old-time vigor. He has been operating in Streeter's Hospital. He has delivered the commencement Address at Hahnemann Medical College, Kansas City; and is also booked for four special lectures on Surgical Topics in the Hering post-Graduate course. It is, therefore, very evident that the Fisher who has resettled himself in Chicago is the stronger and younger man who went there some years ago, and not the enfeebled Doctor who left there to go to Cuba for his health. We are glad to welcome him back to the profession, and hope at no very distant date to have something from his pen.

-The New York Pharmacal Association—

which gave us Lactopeptine and is noted for its pretty and apropos advertisement features-is again before the profession with a medical annual in a colored cover page, the contents setting forth a number of excellent little articles, as well as speaking a good and large word for itself. The engravings are unusually fine. That one, especially, which shows Ambrose Paré at the Siege of Metz, busy with some wounded soldier. The picture does not show what Paré is doing, except that he seems to be at work in the lower part of the body. The accessories are those which attract us. A monk is holding the soldier

to the table, while a mitred bishop is pronouncing his blessing; other religious gentlemen are standing near, observing. But Paré has no thought of aught but his work. He is minus all the modern Moslem mummery; evidently the patient is making a noise, if he hasn't fainted from the agony. Paré is at work with his sleeves rolled up and his waistcoat and shirt open.

On the succeeding page is a modern surgical picture, which consists of the subarachnoid injection of cocaine. Here it takes four men, with fourfold scrubbing of hands and with towels about their heads, to inject a hypodermic into the spinal column. The little pamphlet is a very creditable product.

-The Ohio Homeopathic State Society held its annual session at Columbus, on the 14th and 15th of May. The president, Dr. J. W. Means of Troy, presented a fine programme, and an interesting session resulted.

-The Hering Post-graduate card notifies the profession of the existence in Chicago and as teaching in Hering of a certain Professor Charles E. Fisher, and also of another certain Professor Chester E. Fisher. That's a pretty close resemblance. Bro. Charles had better split his name in the middle.

-The Nebraska State Homeopathic Medical Society held its regular annual meeting at Lincoln, May 7th and 8th. The Secretary, Dr. F. E. Way, issued an Announcement which was a rib-stirrer for fun and effectiveness. It is worth reading a second time, and then laying aside for another reading when business is a little dull.

-The Hahnemannian Advocate, the apparent mouthpiece of Dunham College (its editor being certainly one of the professors of that school), has not a word to say concerning that alleged one-million-dollar contribution to its college. Is the amount so small that it did not catch the editor's eye and interest? But some others of us have a vivid recollection of other newspaper canards issued in timely season to help private persons and medical colleges, and are not easily gulled. Dr. Dewey, who gave print-room to the million-dollar gift, had but just returned from Chicago, where he had been dined, and possibly, in the after confidences of that dinner was filled full of this million-dollar gift. Now, then, to show our good faith we will contribute one dollar, if someone else will subscribe the remaining million-less-one-dollar gift. That seems to be the proper way of making a large subscription.

-It may surprise the Medical Visitor man to learn that Dr. George M. Gould of Philadelphia, whom it so thoroughly killed off with its several caustic editorials, has come to life again,