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29
The lesson to be learnt from this epidemic of
small-pox, like that from others which have so often
preceded it, is the danger of neglected vaccination,
whether it be the primary vaccination of infancy or
the secondary of adult life.
I refrain from discussing the question, which I have
more than once alluded to in my former Reports,
viz.: the complementary or compensating laws
which evidently govern the manifestations of the
so-called zymotic diseases, and which point to
a fixed and almost determinate quantity of
zymotic energy. This is so remarkable, that
attempts have been made to correlate these
diseases, after the manner of the correlation of physical
phenomena, and opinions have been hazarded
of even the probable identity of all zymotic
contagions. "Is it possible," says Mr. Wolff, in his
recent essay on this subject, "that the true explanation
of the variety of zymotic diseases may be,
not that there is a multiplicity of poisons, each
exciting a specific disease, but that there is one cause
common to all, and that the variety of the disease
depends upon the channel through which the noxious
agent finds access to the body? Is it possible that
the same agent gaining access to the body through
the direct medium of the blood, as in syphilis and
dissecting-wound fever, may give rise to the