Vaccination considered in relation to the public health : with inquiries and suggestions thereon. A letter addressed to the Right Honourable the Lord Viscount Morpeth, First Commissioner of Her Majesty's Woods & Forests. / By John Marshall.

  • Marshall, John, 1818-1891.
Date:
MDCCCXLVII
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vaccination considered in relation to the public health : with inquiries and suggestions thereon. A letter addressed to the Right Honourable the Lord Viscount Morpeth, First Commissioner of Her Majesty's Woods & Forests. / By John Marshall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    residue of births is 4567, and of cases of public vaccination, 1657, or about 36 per cent. Making allowances for deaths and for the numbers privately vaccinated, it may be safely assumed that, here also, five per cent, at least remain unprotected by vaccination. Assuming, then, that five per cent, ultimately escaped vaccina¬ tion, a total of 27,000 unprotected children would be thrown upon society, at the expiration of each year, the natural prey of small-pox,—the number of registered births in England and Wales being now above 540,000 per annum. But the annual mortality from this disease has been already stated to be about 4550 since the passing of the Vaccination Act; and, supposing 4000 of the deaths to have occurred among the unvaccinated class, it follows, that the total annual sickness (at the computed rate of four deaths for one) would be 16,000,—to supply which, as above calculated, 27,000 unvaccinated children (already a year old) would be annually rising up within the community. The steps of these calculations are of course more or less liable to error; but at any rate, they serve to show how dangerous a proportion is even five per cent, upon the births to be left un¬ protected from the risk of having small-pox. I have recently endeavoured, by actual observation, to throw light upon this interesting question. Inspections have been made by myself in the metropolis, and by several medical friends, at my request, in the country, of children attending at 43 schools. The returns embrace a total number of 4191 chil¬ dren, belonging to the lower classes of society; and there is no reason to consider them other than fair examples of the general condition of those classes throughout the kingdom. Tables founded on these returns are given hereafter; but it may be stated here, as one general result, that of the 4191 children, who varied in age from 3 to 14 years, 783, or upwards of 18 per cent, were found to be unvaccinated. On distinguishing those born since the passing of the Vaccination Act, (but above three years old) the proportion of unvaccinated, even then, is above 17 per cent.; and, further, on abstracting from the general results, the cases of 670 Jewish children, who present a remark¬ able and highly creditable exception to the rest, the ratio of the