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Having been a public vaccinator for some 35
years, with ample opportunities for hearing the
views of those who "don't believe in vaccination,"
I am surely qualified to know something of the
nature of their objections. I believe it is mainly
due to ignorance, absolute ignorance of what a
terrible disease smallpox is, and of what ravages
it is capable when it attacks the utterly unprotected.
No longer do they hear about its possibilities
or see the pock marked faces of those who
have been through it and recovered, as those of
us who are older were accustomed to see in our
earlier days before vaccination was compulsory,
and so there has gradually arisen a prejudice
against vaccination, created partly from a
natural tenderness towards their children, and
partly from the grossly exaggerated and untrue
stories of harm that has followed the operation,
and a belief that the lymph used was the cause
of it. If only as much trouble were taken to
instruct the present and the coming generations
as to the efficacy and importance of vaccination
as is taken by a certain noisy section to prejudice
them against it and to play upon their fears,
then I am persuaded they would be more amenable
to the teachings of science, and the more ready
to avail themselves of that protection that every
civilised country in the world has by its laws
required its peoples to subject themselves to.
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