Preventive medicine : statistics of small-pox and vaccination in the United Kingdom, and the necessity for a better system of vaccination in Ireland : read at the meeting of the British Association, (Section F) Aberdeen / by William Moore.
- Moore, William
- Date:
- 1859
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Preventive medicine : statistics of small-pox and vaccination in the United Kingdom, and the necessity for a better system of vaccination in Ireland : read at the meeting of the British Association, (Section F) Aberdeen / by William Moore. 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.
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![(5 Variations in infantile mortality. Preventive properties of vaccination. I i j Mortality from small ! po.K in Eng- ! lami. That able officer of the Board of Health, Mr. Simon, says, with regard to these statistics—“ It can no longer seem so diffi- cidt to make a very large beginning towards striking off the an- nual 100,000 deaths, against which the Registrar-General pro- tests as deaths of an artificial production.” Alluding to preventible deaths from moral causes, we find 500 infants dying annually from congenital syiihiUs, traceable to intemperance and profligacy ; as the above-mentioned distin- guished reviewer adds—“ It is difficult to determine whether by their indirect co-operation the schoolmaster and the minister of religion do more for the bodily health, or the sanitary improver more for the progress of education and the lessening of crime.” The mortality of children may be well termed appalling; be- tween 90 and 100,000 dying annually from nervous affections and respiratory diseases alone. Again, the variations of the mortality are more striking at this time of life. Infectious disorders, from - - 694 to 2,149 Nervous disorders, from - - 280 to 3,832 Pulmonary diseases, from - - 213 to 2,897 Thus proving that local or personal arrangements within our control must influence and be chargeable with, to a great extent, excessive mortalities, diseases “ per se,” not producing ten or twelve times as much havoc in one district as another, with- out the aid of local or social aggravations. It is considerably more than half a century since that ever-to- be-remembered benefactor of his race. Dr. Jenner, first proved to the world the preventive properties of vaccination ; and yet the mode in which this discovery, the value of which it is im- possible to estimate, is carried out at the present day in some ])arts of this enlightened coimtry is easily seen, when we find the deaths in England and Wales, from smaU-pox, in nine years, from 1848 till 1856, killed 41,290 persons, or 4,587 every year. In Eaststonehouse, in 100,000 the deaths were 146 ; in Ply- mouth, 134; Penzance, 105. According to Dr. Farr,* during the year 1857 nearly 4,000 patients succiunbedto the disgusting and clearly preventible pestilence known as variola or sm.all-pox, an alarming increase of 1,659 upon the deaths of the preceding year. The imperfections of the Vaccination Act, and the W'ant of a more coinpidsoiy system, are defects to be remedied if this t Causes of deatli in Enylaml in 1857, in Ajipendi.x to Klue Book of the Rc- pi.strar-tiencriil.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22362277_0008.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
