[Reviews of Letters from Graefenberg, 1847-1854.] / [John Gibbs].

  • Gibbs, John, of Camberwell.
Date:
1847-1854
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: [Reviews of Letters from Graefenberg, 1847-1854.] / [John Gibbs]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    45/80 page 109
    “ On 1st April, a boy from Somers Town, aged 5 years, small-pox confluent, “modified (9 days). He had been vaccinated at the age of four months; one “ cicatrix. “ On 7th April, the wife of a labourer, from Lambeth, aged 22 years ; small-pox “ confluent, unmodified (8 days) ; vaccinated in infancy, in Suffolk ; twm good “ cicatrices.” In the quarterly return, No. 20, 1853, at page 42, we find :—“ Chorlton, “ Hulme. The mortality of last quarter has been heavy : 22 deaths have “ occurred from scarlatina, 16 from hooping-cough, and 7 from small-pox ; “ 5 members of one family suffered from the last disease most severely, the “ father and 4 children. They had all been previously vaccinated^ and, as “ reported, with success. Two diedand a boy, who had not only been “ vaccinated, but previously had the small-pox, and was very much disfigured, “ was one of the victims. This manifests a very strong predisposition in some “families for certain diseases.” In No. 17, under the head of Taunton, the following appears :—“ There has “ been one death from small-pox, that of a male, 20 years of age, vaccinated in “ childhood,” In No. 19, it is stated, under the same head :—“ Taunton. “ Autumnal diarrhoea has been prevalent, but not of a severe character. In “ other respects the district has been free from disease.” During a period of sixteen years, ending 1851, rather more than half Ihe patients admitted into the small-pox hospital in London had been previously vaccinated ;* and out of eight hundred patients admitted into the same hospital in 1852, only 230 were unvaccinated ;t that is to say, five hundred and seventy, or considerably more than two-thirds of the whole had heen vaccinated. Very defective, indeed, must he the general practice of vaccination, as is evidenced by the following statistics given in Mr. Gibbs’s letter : It is asserted that if vaccination “ does not always [does it ever, except when “it proves fatal] prevent small-pox, the attack is much milder.” So mild indeed is it, that, in illustration it might be added on the authority of Dr. George Gregory, that out of 298 patients having small-pox after vaccination, who were admitted in the course of a year mto the small-pox hospital, 31 died, and (on the authority of the Eegistrar-general) that, out of 432 deaths from small-pox in an epidemic season, in a period of 10 weeks, in London, 135 deaths were returned as occurring after vaccination, and this, be it remembered, in a popula- tion, of which it is complained by the advocates of this antidote (?) that it is much neglected. Indeed so notorious are the failures of vaccination to afford protection from the ravages of small-pox, that the “ Lancet ” is forced to account for them by plead- ing that a supply of effective lymph has never been provided ; that the extension of vaccination has hitherto been entrusted to parsimonious Boards of Guardians who not only accepted the lowest tender, but were displeased if called upon to pay for many operations ; and that vaccination has never formed part of the education of medical men, but that each practitioner is left to pick up his experience, how, when, and where ho can. In one place the “ Lancet ” asserts * Medical Times, August 27th, 1853. f Lancet, February 12th, 1853.
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