Dr. Jenner’s Experiment

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  “March 28th, 1797, I inoculated this girl and carefully rubbed the variolous matter into two slight incisions made upon the left arm. A little inflammation appeared in the usual manner around the parts where the matter was inserted, but so early as the fifth day it vanished entirely without producing any effect on the system.” —Edward Jenner (1749–1823). “The Three Original Publications on Vaccination Against Smallpox.” Portrait of Edward Jenner, painted by James Northcote in either 1803 or 1823

Return of the Masque

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The Masque Returns--and Jim Carrey ain't in it, nor his little dog, either.

As the Schaivo case gets kicked under the table, and copy-cat cases are springing up, I could not help but remember this quote:

"With the death of abolutes, the prospects are grim for any lover of justice, freedom and order. Western culture will lurch drunkenly between chaotic lawlessness and countering authoritarianism, in which some particularly abysmal vacuum of confidence could finally issue in a supreme dictatorship, mocking Western aspirations for democracy as ineffective and demonstrating the strong alliance between technology and the state. Until then, violence--blood brother of such a totalitarianism--will play its fateful part, naked or disguised, in an inevitable power struggle on all levels."

Os Guiness, "The Dust of Death" (1973)

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