Vaccination vindicated : being an answer to the leading anti-vaccinators / by John C. McVail.
- John McVail
- Date:
- 1887
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Vaccination vindicated : being an answer to the leading anti-vaccinators / by John C. McVail. Source: Wellcome Collection.
50/214 page 34
![certain rare cases follow even natural small-pox, and less rarely it may follow inoculated small-pox, or inoculated cow-pox. (2) Not even in the first flush of enthusiasm did Jenner imagine that vaccination would abolish small-pox unless all the susceptible were vaccinated. The protection of London would not benefit Edin- burgh or Dublin, and the vaccination of 95 per cent, of a nation would not, except by lessening possible sources of infection, have a vicarious influence on the unvaccinated residuum. This is so perfectly patent that one listens only with amazement to the clamour that is raised by anti-vaccinators over outbreaks, which owe their origin and spread very largely to the existence in our midst of a small section of the people, who, owing either to gross carelessness, or to the in- fluence of writers like Dr. Wallace, remain still in constant danger of attack by the disease. If one accepted the author's view, that the proportion of the population vaccinated is much less than is usually supposed, we might safely leave him to answer himself—to show that the existence of small-pox is exactly what a vaccinator would look for in a country so incompletely protected. But I have shown that the accepted estimate for the unvaccinated over the whole country is about 5 per cent. In England and Wales, therefore, this would give in the year 1885, for example, an unvaccinated population of about 1,375,000, surely a sufficient field for a very considerable epidemic, even if we take into calculation the fact that many of this great residuum have already suffered for their own temerity, or for their parents' folly, by an attack of small-pox. The Comparative Value of Vaccinal Operations. (3) Another and most important factor in the production of our present-day small-pox, is the existence of a very large class of badly- vaccinated people. The second edition of Reynolds' System of Medicine was published in 1870, and contains a long article on vaccination by the late Dr. Seaton of the Local Government Board. This was just previous to the great epidemic of 1870-3, and the four years 1866-9 had had a very low small-pox mortality. This is some times depicted as a piping time of peace among believers in vaccination—a time when they were given up to vain boastings about the efficacy of the rite—a time when they were living in a fool's paradise, believing the reign of small-pox to be at an end. This sanguine view was certainly not held by those whose duty it was to have an accurate knowledge of the whole matter. Dr. Seaton says,* In the official inquiries [of 1860-4], in the course of which * Op. cit„ 2nd Ed., vol. i., p. 295.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b20395243_0050.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
