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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![' Annual mor- tality from small-pox, England and IVales. i| ima 11-pox ' mortality in ['Scotland. 8 had small-pox afterwards, and many of these had already attained the age of from 6 to 13 years. One of these seven was, shortly after the attack, very superficially marked, but so slightly, that the spots will iirobahly disap2iear ; the other six were not marked at all. He goes on to state that the susceptibility to small-pox in those who have not been vaccinated, having escaped the disease in infancy, increases as fife advances to the age of 20 or 30 years, and the deformity and delicacy of constitution thereby entailed are generally greater after infancy and childhood, whilst those who have been successfully vaccinated in infancy, enjoy, for a number of years at least, total immunity. Mr. Marson’s statements* are corroborated by the above, as also are those of Dr. Balfour, t published some years since, who proves that amongst persons protected by vaccination, of aU ages, sol- diers, sailors, and boys in England, the deaths are only about 1 in 5,400 annually. Sailors are the least exposed to contact with unvaccinated persons, and the mortality among them, spe- cially, was fofuid to be only 1 in about 20,000. Now, let us put down the deaths in England and Wales from small-pox annually at 4,000—a low estimate—and assuming that these cases had been all carefully vaccinated, and that say even 5 xier cent, caught variola, 200 in all, and of these 200 that 5 per cent, died, viz., ten, by this calculation, which is giving a wide latitude for mortality, we coiddsave 3,990 cases out of the 4,000 to this community. And thus we woidd be attaining the status of immunity from small-pox enjoyed by some of our con- tiuental neighbours, instance Denmark, where this disease has not shown itself for fifteen years continuously ; and, when it did re-appear, its virus was so blunted as to excite comi)aratively little uneasiness. From Dr. Seaton’s notesj: on the present small-pox mortality of Scotland, I find in the eight princijial towns—Glasgow, Edinbingh, Dundee, Aberdeen, Paisley, Greenock, Leith, and Perth—the total mortality from small-pox in 1856 was 645, aud of epidemic diseases this was the fifth in the order of ])revalence. The total mortality from all causes being 22,248; the deaths from small-pox constituted 2'8 per cent., which is double the average of London for the last ten years, or of England and Wales for the last seven, and fomdeenfold the average of Bohemia or Lombardy. * Petition on the Vaccination iiill, 1856. t Med. Chirur. Transnc., vol. xxxv. j l’ai)ers relating to tlie Hi.story and Practice of Vaccination, presented to botli Houses of Parliament, by comniand of lier Majesty, 1857.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22362277_0010.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
