The value of vaccination as shown by an analysis of 10,403 cases of smallpox / by W. Gayton.

  • Gayton, William.
Date:
1901
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The value of vaccination as shown by an analysis of 10,403 cases of smallpox / by W. Gayton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    protected in such a way as to warrant their being classified as ‘twell vaccinated.’’ The subject, it must be admitted, deserves all the attention and painstaking enquiry that can be instituted, and, however dis- appointing it may be, both to the laity and profession alike, it should nevertheless be openly admitted; indeed, I would go further and say, it should be pressed home to the public, that post-vaccinal Smallpox is of common occurrence, and brings by far the larger proportion of inmates to the Smallpox Hospitals. Whether the failure to ensure the anticipated universal protection from attack is owing to the employment of lymph lacking its original efficiency, and hence not causing the changes in the system which should have been excited at the time of the operation, isa question naturally and justly raised by the facts I have alluded to. As, then, we are of necessity bound to acknowledge, however reluctant some may be to do so, that a certain percentage of per- sons, even if fairly well vaccinated, contract Smallpox, we have to show the amount of security obtained by repeating the operation ; and—when we bear in mind that the number and character of vaccine marks on the person are of the highest importance, as regards both the degree of protection afforded against Smallpox and the degree in which it controls the fatality of the disease when it occurs; also the very large amount of bad vaccination that iS seen, the great intercommunication that must of necessity exist in all large cities, and the endemic form that Smallpox has now apparently assumed—it appears to be a good general rule to recom- mend that all about puberty [which in this country generally
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