Letter on vaccination to a medical practitioner / from H. Strickland Constable.

  • Constable, H. Strickland (Henry Strickland), 1821-1909.
Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letter on vaccination to a medical practitioner / from H. Strickland Constable. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    appear in places where they have not been seen per- haps for hundreds of years, that is to say since the last time the same conditions of heat, moisture, &c., existed in those places. So with Small Pox, certain conditions of filth, bad air, &c., will cause the disease to appear in places where it has never been known within the memory of man. Now this may perfectly well be in consequence of germs, latent till brought to life by the requisite condition of filth, bad air, &c. This would not be opposed to the fashionable germ theories. But for all practical purposes it does not mean infection, as the word is always used, but it infection from his later writings and speeches, Mr. Mill (when he descends from his transcendentals) comes under the head of ‘‘ Misanthropic Philanthropists.” That is to say he hates the world and all its ways as God has made them, but he di’cams philanthropic dreams about the veiy different manner he would have done it. He is like the gi'eat philosopher wlio taught that hunger was but a clumsy contrivance for the regulation of eating, that the love for parents for thcii’ children was one of nature's bungles, and the feel- ings that are natural between the two sexes a mistake altogether. Mr. Mill seems to believe in the world being regenerated by philosophers, not seeing that regardless of dreamers it is always being slowly and sm’ely regenerated, assimilating the good grain and letting all the theoretical chaff blow away. Frederick the Great said “ If I wanted to ruin a country, I would set the philosophers to govern it. The whining cai-pers at man, as God has made him to suit each era in which he lives, should remember that amongst the fruits of the spirit St. Paul makes no mention whatever of an irritable cra\dng for detraction, nor of discontent, nor of dyspepsy. Not that the class, as a rule, care a straw what St. Paul says. But that does not make his words any less words of wisdom. Commuuist.s. Socialists, and the Philosophic Radicals coolly talk,of regenerating society as if it weiu the easiest thing in the woiid. But a man loves property as a sheep loves grass. Possibly the latter might, after a few thousand generations and careful selection, be regenerated into loathing the sight of gi’ass. So men in time may loathe the idea of possessing property. I am afraid this note has not much to do with poor Mr. Brown ; but it is not often that I trouble the printers, so when I do I like to give my friends a bit of my mind. I suppose no one else will read my little publi- cation. We have all the army dcbat:s and the Tichborne trial to read, and each day of a man’s life is but as it were a span long.