QUESTION AND ANSWER DEPARTMENT


All right if it will make the doctor or the patient any more contented in mind. Small-pox is such a rare disease under conditions of cleanliness and modern sanitary facilities that the best and most sensible thing is to just forget it.


Question: IS IT TRUE THAT LEG VACCINATIONS ARE EVEN MORE HAZARDOUS THAN THOSE ON THE ARM?.

Answer: Yes, especially as far as the immediate risk is concerned. In the case of a very sore and badly swollen limb immobilisation of the arm is a relatively simple matter, whereas fixation of the leg sharply limits the patients freedom. There is, therefore, a strong urge to keep going when absolute rest of the part may be clearly indicated. Another danger is the possible extension of the inflammatory process through the lymphatics to the pelvic tract.

Question: IS A MILD “TAKE” AS GOOD A PROTECTION AGAINST SMALL-POX AS A SEVERE REACTION?.

Answer: This is a purely academic question and we doubt very much if anyone is qualified to give anything more than a theoretical answer based, shall we say, upon expediency?.

Question: WHEN A VACCINATION FAILS TO TAKE, HOW STRONG EVIDENCE IS IT THAT THE INDIVIDUAL IS IMMUNE TO SMALL-POX?.

Answer: In the first place the vaccine lymph may have been a “dud.” Revaccination would be the happy (?) answer to that part of the question. There are those who have been revaccinated several times without a single “take.” Theoretically and from an advertising standpoint such individuals are immune to small-pox. Proof of this, however, is lacking. Sometimes the first and second vaccinations do not take, but the third produces a terrific reaction. How shall we classify such a case? Again, nobody really knows. Finally a successful take has been followed in a few months with actual small-pox. Such facts are not considered proper material for public consumption.

Question: FOR HOW LONG ON THE AVERAGE DOES VACCINATION PROTECT AGAINST SMALL-POX?.

Answer: It used to be a lifetime proposition. Next it was seven years. Now it is down to four or five. It all depends upon just how much punishment the public will stand. Apparently the limit of tolerance has not yet been reached.

Question: DO YOU FAVOR INTERNAL OR HOMOEOPATHIC VACCINATION- -FOR INSTANCE, GIVING Variolinum OR Vaccininum AS A PROPHYLAXIS AGAINST THE DISEASE?.

Answer: All right if it will make the doctor or the patient any more contented in mind. Small-pox is such a rare disease under conditions of cleanliness and modern sanitary facilities that the best and most sensible thing is to just forget it.

Allan D. Sutherland
Dr. Sutherland graduated from the Hahnemann Medical College in Philadelphia and was editor of the Homeopathic Recorder and the Journal of the American Institute of Homeopathy.
Allan D. Sutherland was born in Northfield, Vermont in 1897, delivered by the local homeopathic physician. The son of a Canadian Episcopalian minister, his father had arrived there to lead the local parish five years earlier and met his mother, who was the daughter of the president of the University of Norwich. Four years after Allan’s birth, ministerial work lead the family first to North Carolina and then to Connecticut a few years afterward.
Starting in 1920, Sutherland began his premedical studies and a year later, he began his medical education at Hahnemann Medical School in Philadelphia.
Sutherland graduated in 1925 and went on to intern at both Children’s Homeopathic Hospital and St. Luke’s Homeopathic Hospital. He then was appointed the chief resident at Children’s. With the conclusion of his residency and 2 years of clinical experience under his belt, Sutherland opened his own practice in Philadelphia while retaining a position at Children’s in the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department.
In 1928, Sutherland decided to set up practice in Brattleboro.