The prime aim of the modern surgeon is to make every wound aseptic and to keep it so.  The careful operator employs every means at his command to clear the field of operations of all bacteria.  He utilises every particle of the marvellously minute and intricate technique of asepsis to prevent the entrance through the wounded tissues of any disease elements before, during or after the operation.  He fears sepsis equally with death, and yet, under the blighting and blinding influence of an ancient and venerated myth inherited from his ignorant and superstitious forbears of a pre-scientific age, he will deliberately inoculate the virulent infective products of diseased animal tissues into the circulation of a healthy person.  And as if to cap the climax of his stupidity and inconsistency, he performs the operation under “aseptic precautions.”

The poisonous matter which nature wisely eliminates from the body of a diseased calf in an effort to save its life and restore it to health is seized upon by the vaccinator and implanted into the wholesome body of a helpless child.  Think of the unparalleled absurdity of purposely infecting the body of a healthy person in this era of sanitary science with the poison from a diseased beast, under the senseless pretext of protecting the victim of the ingrafted disease from the contagion of another disease!  Can inconsistency go further?

I oppose the practice of vaccination because it is not known what vaccine virus is, except that it is a mixed contagion of disease.  We hear much these days about “pure” virus and “pure calf lymph.”  Nothing could be more absurd and meaningless than the flippant talk indulged in by vaccinators and the purveyors of vaccine virus about “pure calf lymph,” a hybrid product of diseased animal tissues.  “Pure virus” translated into plain English is pure “animal poison.”  The phrase “pure calf lymph” is applied to an brand of vaccine virus now in use is a misnomer for two reasons.  It is not “pure” and it is not “calf lymph.”

Calf lymph is the normal nutrient fluid which circulates in the lymphatic vessels of the calf.  Lymph is described by physiologists as a “transparent, colourless, nutrient alkaline fluid which circulates in the lymphatic vessels and thoracic ducts of animal bodies.”  Lymph is a physiological product, while the so-called “pure calf lymph” used by vaccinators is a pathological product, derived from a lesion on a diseased calf.  The difference between calf lymph and so-called “pure calf lymph” is as great as is the difference between a food and a poison.  The vaccine mixture now most generally used by the medical profession is known under the name of “glycerinized vaccine lymph,” but it is not lymph at all.  It is made by utilising practically the entire lesion or pock on the heifer when it is in the vesicular stage.  Such a lesion is broken open and scraped with a Volkmann