English vaccination and small pox statistics : with special reference to the report of the Royal Commission, and to recent small pox epidemics / by Noel A. Humphreys.
- Humphreys, Noel A.
- Date:
- [1897]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: English vaccination and small pox statistics : with special reference to the report of the Royal Commission, and to recent small pox epidemics / by Noel A. Humphreys. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![10 . Tt ]ias been urge(1 by anti-vaccinators that the real explana¬ tion of the exceptional immunity from the disease enjoyed by the staff of small pox hospitals in not the effect of re-vaccination, but is due to long and gradual exposure to the poison, by which tbe human frame becomes insusceptible to its effect. The Commis¬ sioners declare that facts do not support this theoretical explana¬ tion.. In the first place, the exposure to the poison in a small pox hospital cannot be described as gradual, and this theory, moreover, affords no explanation of the phenomenon that among the hospital attendants, very nearly all the re-vaccinated escape the disease, while those not re-vaccinated are attacked in such far larger proportions. Moreover, as the Commissioners state in their final report, “ the experience of almost certain immunity from the disease “ m the case of successfully re-vaccinated attendants in small pox “ hospitals has no parallel in the cass of the staff in hospitals in “ which other contagious or infectious diseases are treated.” At the London Fever Hospital a large number of typhus patients were treated during the ten years 1862-71, and the staff of attendants (including laundry women) averaged about ioo; the average number of cases of typhus among the staff was 19-2 per annum. The medical staff suffered severely during this period. In. 1862 two medical officers caught typhus; in 1863 four medical officers, successively caught typhus ; in 1864 and 1865 a medical officer in each year contracted the disease; and in 1866 the resident medical officer died from the disease. It is evident that exposure to the influence of typhus poison does not protect the doctors and nurses from the disease; it is therefore only reasonable to prefer the theory that small pox attendants are protected by re-vaceina- tion, and not by “ exposure to the influence of small pox poison.” Table IX—.Number and Proportion of Attendants, <&c., who contracted Infectious Diseases * in the Metropolitan Asylums Fever Hospitals in the Nine Years 1887-95. [‘‘Final Report,” p. 85.] Metropolitan Asylums Board’s Fever Hospitals. Year. Number of Attendants Employed, either Temporarily or otherwise. Of whom there contracted Scarlet Fever, Diphtheria, or Typhoid during the Year. course of the Year. Number. Proportion. 1887. 1,103 37 35 42 53 68 121 121 111 116 Per Cnt. ’88. '89. 3'4 ’90. >.312 I,l6o 1.652 2,175 2,182 2,514 — ’91. 4’° '92. 5'9 ’93. Tl ’94. ’95. 56 51 4-6 # Scarlet fever, diphtheria, or typhoid fever. Before leaving this branch of the subject, it may be pointed out by way of contrast, that more than 5 per cent, of the attendants in the Metropolitan Asylums Board Fever Hospitals contracted either scarlet fever, diphtheria, or typhoid fever during seven years ending with 1895; whereas among the attendants employed temporarily or otherwise in the Metropolitan Asylums Board Small Pox Hospitals Ships during the twelve years 1884-95, the propor¬ tion w’ho contracted the disease only amounted to o’6 per cent. Thus the attendants in the Fever Hospitals appear to be more than eight times as liable to infection from scarlet fever, diphtheria, and typhoid fever than are the re-vaccinated attendants on the Small Pox Hospital Ships, although adults are, re-vaccination apart, far more likely to be infected by small pox than by the diseases treated in the Fever Hospitals. Proportional Mortality from Small Pox among Vaccinated and Unvaccinated. The six last local epidemics of small pox in England, to which reference has before been made, were specially investigated by pocal Government Board Inspectors or by medical men selected oy the Commission, who made careful analyses of all the available statistics. Disregarding the incredulity of the opponents of vac¬ cination of this class of statistics, it is necessary to refer to the evidence on this point afforded by the reports on these six epidemics. If the figures for the six towns are aggregated they ifford more trustworthy results because they are larger. The lumber of unvaccinated cases of attack was 2,321, of which 822, >r 35*4 per cent, proved fatal; the 1,449 cases under 10 years of ige gave a mortality of 36-0 per cent., and 872 above that age a mortality of 34-3 per cent. The close agreement between the iroportional mortality among unvaccinated cases under and over !0 years of age is very noteworthy. Excluding the 2,321 unvac- linated cases, from the 11,065 oases of attack recorded during the ix epidemics, the remaining 8,744 gave 461 deaths, showing a nortality of only 5*2 per cent. Thus the total cases of attack, 1,065, showed a fatal percentage of 11-5; the 8,744 vaccinated ases, including all the doubtful cases, namely those stated to be accinated but bearing no marks, showed a mortality of 5-2 per](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b3055696x_0020.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
