The Project Gutenberg EBook of Doctor Therne, by H. Rider Haggard

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Title: Doctor Therne

Author: H. Rider Haggard

Release Date: April 22, 2006 [EBook #5764]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DOCTOR THERNE ***

Produced by John Bickers; Dagny

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