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10
It is in circumstances like these that we should beware lest we
allow ourselves to be lulled into false security, but should rather
be stimulated to greater activity in making good our walls and
defences to keep out the tide, and by dint of cleanliness and sound
sanitation, and other necessary precautions, as well as by good
protective vaccination and by re-vaccination, we should endeavour to
keep our outworks in such a state of preparedness as to resist the
encroachments of the enemy on the first signs of its formidable
approach.
Unfortunately the very reverse is too generally the case, for in
the absence of Small-Pox the possibility of the scourge itself returning
is often forgotten, and the commonest safeguards are neglected.
People, moreover, persuade themselves, or are persuaded, that
vaccination is of little consequence, or that it is even an evil and
unnecessary thing.
They forget that by the very law of Small-Pox it appears as
though we must be either actively preparing to resist attack or
stolidly standing still while nature breaks up the fallow ground so
as to have in readiness a fruitful soil fully capable of receiving and
vitalising the fatal seed.
For is it not true that while some may be quietly enjoying a
fancied freedom from danger, there are classes of the community, and
more especially those who are living under conditions the least
favourable to health, who are gradually but certainly, by growth and
by other constitutional changes, acquiring a greater receptivity for
this much dreaded malady, and are thus becoming the probable
victims of a future outbreak and the means by which the disease
will be propagated and intensified.
I again sound this note of warning and of preparation,
deprecating as I do most strongly the least neglect, believing that it
is true wisdom always to be in readiness for the evil day, not as
though it was very far off, but as if we were standing in the very
presence of an enemy warily watching our every movement, and
determined to attack us on the least signs of wavering and
unsteadiness in the ranks.