Jenner centenary number.

  • British Medical Association
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Jenner centenary number. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    118/160 page 1306
    Medical Journal J GLOUCESTER AND JENNER. [May 23, 1896. 1306 weeks being without a oase, and by the beginning of this year as many as 5 and 6 per week were notified. Up to this time, however, the disease was well under control, and the resources of the existing isolation hospital, though very limited, were sufficient to meet all requirements. But in the last week of February a sudden explosion of infection took place, the notifi- cations suddenly ran up to 61, and the accommodation of the hospital was at once exhausted. Previous to this explosion, although some unvaccinated children had been attacked, the bulk of the cases had been young persons and adults, who had been vaccinated in infancy, but whose protection had not been renewed by revaccination. The great outburst of the infection which then took place occurred chiefly in unvac- cinated children under 10 years of age, most of whom had been in attendance on the infant department of one of the large Board schools which have within the last few years been erected in the newer part of the city. The precise source of the infection by which this conflagration was kindled has been a subject of much controversy, the antivaccinators hav- ing endeavoured to make capital out of it by asserting that it was introduced into the school by “a vaccinated teacher.” Whether this be so or not is a matter of no great import- ance either wav- What is of prime consideration is that the number of centres of infection thus established, in a neighbourhood which was swarming with unvaccinated children, and under conditions which, in consequence of the sudden exhaustion of accommodation at the hospital, rendering effective isolation impossible, at once gave such an impetus to the epidemic that from that moment it became imprac- ticable to control it. Under the influence of the panic created by this circumstance, the local authority were driven to make desperate efforts to overtake the pestilence by putting up building after building, constructed of iron and wood, for the purpose of extending the available accommoda- tion ; but all in vain, for the number of cases that had to be treated in their own homes grew steadily larger. There is little cause for wonder if, in the rush which was thus made to increase the mere ward space of the hospital, there was some oversight in at the same time providing for corresponding enlargement of the administrative arrangements; until a time at length arrived when it was apparent that the whole machinery must come to a standstill unless a vigorous effort were made to systematise it, and to put it under effective control. It is, of course, very easy to blame those who were responsible for this administra- tive breakdown, but it is less easy to apportion precisely the responsibility which is due to the different parties involved. That the hospital itself has been the cause, in more ways than one, of the increase of the epidemic is unquestionable, and it is one of numerous illustrations of the general irony of the situation that only a short time prior to the present out- break, the urban and rural authorities of Gloucester had practically decided to unite in erecting a joint hospital some distance outside the city, as a result of which the present hospital would have been entirely removed. As it is, several thousands of pounds have been expended in the erection of buildings of such a temporary character that, apart from their being unfit for use for any other disease than small- pox, it is very doubtful whether they can be removed and used again even for that purpose, and it is more doubtful still whether the Local Government Board will allow any loan to be effected to provide for payment for them. In this, as well as in other respects, the present epidemic is a serious caution to the sanitary authorities of other places as to the folly of postponing the duty of making provision to meet such an outbreak as this, of the certainty of which they had been repeatedly warned, until the enemy was at their doors and had forced the first line of defence before they had had i m e to strengthen it adequately. THE GLOUCESTER EPIDEMIC: LAST WEEK’S REPORT. The new cases notified at Gloucester last week were slightly in excess of those of the previous week, being 84 as against 81. But this increase was apparent rather than real, being due to a large return received from a single medical practi- tioner on one of the early days of the week, a considerable portion of which ought really to have been sent in during the week before. Making allowance for this discrepancy, there has been, therefore, a further diminution of new cases, though not a large one. From the returns to hand for the present week there is reason to conclude that a larger dimin- ution will be recorded, and, what is equally satisfactory, the type of the epidemic is distinctly ameliorating. HOW GLOUCESTER LOST FAITH IN JENNER. The irony of events has surely never asserted itself m a more striking way than it has done in the relations of the centenary of Jenner to the city and county with which his labours are more intimately associated. One hundred years ago Edward Jenner was engaged in the practice of his pro- fession in the small town of Berkeley, in Gloucestershire, sixteen miles from the county town and episcopal city of Gloucester, then the chief urban centre of the county, a position from which it has been since ousted by the increase in the population and social importance of Cheltenham and by the enormous growth of the Gloucester- shire portion of the city of Bristol. Although Jenner was no exception to the truth of the old adage that a prophet is generally less honoured in his own country than he is outside of it, he was not with- out warm supporters in Gloucestershire at an early stage of his discoveries, who recognised their im- portance and appreciated the distinction they were likely to confer upon the county which was their scene. This recognition was formally emphasised in the marble embodi- ment of her distinguished son, which the county placed in the cathedral at Gloucester two years after his death. Nor is there any reason to think that from that time until about fifteen years ago the appreciation of vaccination as an effective preven- tive of small-pox was not so great in Gloucestershire as it was in any other portion of the United Kingdom. But about that time a change began to manifest itself in this hitherto un- disturbed feeling of confidence in vaccination which Glouces- tershire, in common with the rest of Great Britain, had maintained. A centre of infection was developed in the cathedral city by the establishment in it of a local branch of the organisation which, under the name of the Anti- vaccination League, had begun the mischievous agitation against vaccination it has since so persistently carried on. The influence of this agitation in Gloucester would pro- bably have been small had it not been for the casual support it was able to obtain from the fact that the leader of the movement happened also to be the propi'ietor of a daily newspaper which had a few years before been established in Gloucester, and was thus in a position to lend the publicity of his columns without stint to every statement, however absurd, which tended to throw discredit on Jenner’s work. By this means, aided by a copious diffusion of mendacious antivaccination literature, the faith of the Gloucestrians in vaccination was gradually but surely undermined. The next stage in the campaign thus cleverly commenced was to “nobble” the local Board of Guardians by making com- pulsory vaccination a test question at the annual elections, and in this way to obtain a majority by whose aid a resolu- tion was passed nine years ago suspending the prosecution of vaccination defaulters. From that time to this the state of public opinion in Gloucester-, which by a process of inocula- tion had diffused itself into the neighbouring portions of the county, has become increasingly disaffected towards vaccination. With the exception of periodical protests in the annual reports of the medical officers of health for the city and county, there was no effort made to stem the flood of misrepresentations with which the antivaccinators assiduously deluged the district. Then came the epidemic which in the early part of the present year burst like a thundercloud over the city, and awakened it rudely
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