Gloucester epidemic of small-pox, 1895-6 : report of the committee appointed by the Board of Guardians to organise and carry out the general vaccination of the city and district.
- Gloucester (England). Board of Guardians.
- Date:
- [1896]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Gloucester epidemic of small-pox, 1895-6 : report of the committee appointed by the Board of Guardians to organise and carry out the general vaccination of the city and district. 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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![had an unvaccinated child who took the disease and died. The father lodged away from home during his child's illness, but, on returning, con- tracted the disease, whilst his other children, who had been vaccinated, escaped altogether. Neither of these 5 men had been re-vaccinated. All the other men, with one exception, were re-vaccinated in April. The Secretary of one of the largest Friendly Societies writes: My experience during the recent epidemic has brought to my notice numerous instances of the protective value of vaccination and re-vaccination ; and I should like to see vaccination enforced all over England, fully believing that nothing better could be done to protect the nation against small-pox.” Mr. A. Estconrt, Builder and Contractor, writes : I cannot give you any fixed number of employes, as our work lies so much away from Gloucester. We may put the average for some time past in Gloucester at 40, most of whom have, I believe, been re-vaccinated. There area few old hands who had small-pox years ago, and they have not been re-vaccinated nor had the disease again. We have only had two cases. One a young man who came from a country job and took the small-pox and died in the hospital. I cannot ascertain as to his vaccination in infancy, but he had not been re-vaccinated. A man named M. had been re-vaccinated some time ago in the Army, and has escaped ; so have all his children, who were vaccinated. His wife deferred it, and caught the small-pox, and was suckling a baby who had been vaccinated three weeks before. The baby caught it, I pre- sume, from the mother. They both went to the hospital and died. Messrs. S. J. Moreland &• Sons, of the Gloucester Match Works, write: “ We employ about 470 hands. At the commencement of the epidemic six had small-pox, of whom two are rather badly marked. None of these had been re-vaccinated. Since re-vaccination of all the hands there have been two cases of small-pox, one occurring three days after re-vaccination ; the other is stated to have occurred two months after the operation. All the work-people live in infected districts.” [Note.—The latter of the above two cases was investigated, and it was satisfactorily established on the evidence of two medical men who attended the young woman in question that her illness referred to was not small-pox.—F.T.B.] The Collector of Customs svrites : ” Nothing of a striking character has come under my observation illustrative of the protective value of vaccina- tion, beyond the fact that the whole of my staff are brought more or less in contact with the public, and that, with one or two exceptions, all have recently been re-vaccinated, and none of them have suffered from small- pox. The whole of my own household (9 in number) have been either vaccinated or re-vaccinated just lately, and none of them have taken small- pox.” Mr. A. King, Builder and Contractor, writes : “ I and all my family believe in vaccination, and were all of us successfully vaccinated at the outbreak of our trouble. I, as you doubtless are aware, established the Small-pox Relief Fund, and more than £900 has come to hand, besides large con- signments of clothing. The distributions have been made by myself, three sons, and by Miss King, who has done the clothing department. Thousands of visits have been made to the houses and families where they have been afflicted, and I am happy to say that we have not been attacked. This of itself is a strong argument as to vaccination being a certain preventative. After a lot of persuasion we induced all the men in the employ of self and sons, 25 in number, to be vaccinated with the exception of one man, who, poor fellow, took the small-pox, from which he died, as also did his daughter.” Messrs. Reynolds &■ Co., of the Albert Flour Mills, write : ” The number of our emploves who were vaccinated here at our cost was 74 ; vaccinated privately, six. Most of these were re-vaccinations, and all were done](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22335614_0054.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
