Vital statistics. Small-pox & vaccination in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and continental countries and cities, with tables compiled from authentic sources / by Charles T. Pearce.

  • Pearce, Charles T. (Charles Thomas)
Date:
1882
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vital statistics. Small-pox & vaccination in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and continental countries and cities, with tables compiled from authentic sources / by Charles T. Pearce. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    It is surprising, after the demonstrative evidence that has been afforded on the subject in the official reports of small-pox hospitals, that this dogma is still propounded by the medical faculty, and even re-vaccination urged upon the people at intervals of uncertain dates. The frequent recurrence of small-pox epidemics in the metropolis where vaccination has been so extensively adopted —the increased severity and malignancy of the disease according to the hospital reports, lead us to inquire—What yi h^s vaccination done ? ' That small-pox does not select its victims from the tm- vaccinated portion of the population is evident from the fact that from 80 to 90 per cent, of the patients admitted into hospitals are found to have been vaccinated, and only 10 to • , 20 per cent, of the patients are unvaccinated. How comes fj(]?) it, then, that the great majority are the vaccinated, if the doctrine of protection be true ? It is passing strange, too, that if Mr. Simon's statement before the Vaccination Committee of 1871, that at least 95 per cent, of the population were well vaccinated^ no fewer than 7,876 persons died of small-pox in one year (1871) in London alone. It is no longer denied that the vaccinated do succumb to small-pox, but it is contended that a certain amount of protection is afforded. It is, moreover, assumed that those who recover from small-pox having been vaccinated, would probably have died had they not had some protection. The fact of the different degrees of natural susceptibility to small- pox, as to scarlatina, measles, and all eruptive fevers, is ignored altogether. That which was noted by one of the best English medical historians, Sir Gilbert Blane, is as truly applicable to existing
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