_
Author's Note
DOCTOR THERNE
BY
H. RIDER HAGGARD
DEDICATED
In all sincerity
(but without permission)
to the
MEMBERS OF THE JENNER SOCIETY
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Some months since the leaders of the Government dismayed their
supporters and astonished the world by a sudden surrender to the
clamour of the anti-vaccinationists. In the space of a single evening,
with a marvellous versatility, they threw to the agitators the
ascertained results of generations of the medical faculty, the report
of a Royal Commission, what are understood to be their own
convictions, and the President of the Local Government Board. After
one ineffectual fight the House of Lords answered to the whip, and,
under the guise of a "graceful concession," the health of the country
was given without appeal into the hand of the "Conscientious
Objector."
In his perplexity it has occurred to an observer of these events--as a
person who in other lands has seen and learned something of the
ravages of smallpox among the unvaccinated--to try to forecast their
natural and, in the view of many, their almost certain end. Hence
these pages from the life history of the pitiable, but unfortunate Dr.
Therne.[*] /Absit omen!/ May the prophecy be falsified! But, on the
other hand, it may not. Some who are very competent to judge say that
it will not; that, on the contrary, this strange paralysis of "the
most powerful ministry of the generation" must result hereafter in
much terror, and in the sacrifice of innocent lives.
[*] It need hardly be explained that Dr. Therne himself is a character
convenient to the dramatic purpose of the story, and in no way
intended to be taken as a type of anti-vaccinationist medical men,
who are, the author believes, as conscientious in principle as
they are select in number.
The importance of the issue to those helpless children from whom the
State has thus withdrawn its shield, is this writer's excuse for
inviting the public to interest itself in a medical tale. As for the
moral, each reader can fashion it to his fancy. _