[Report 1928] / Monmouthshire County Council.

  • Monmouthshire County Council
Date:
1928
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1928] / Monmouthshire County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    59/118 page 55
    The case mortality in vaccinated persons was 4-8 per cent., and in unvaccinated persons, 49-7 per cent. The last two figures do not appear in Dr. Barry’s report, but have been extracted from his figures in this office. Dr. Barry, however, gives the following figures (p. xvi) :— “ Of children under 10 years of age, the attack rate was— of the vaccinated 5, of the unvaccinated 101. The death rate of the vaccinated was 0-09. The death rate of the unvaccinated was 44-00.” Dr. Barry adds: “ Let me state this difference in other terms: for 100,000 vaccinated children the rate of Small-pox mortality actually observed in Sheffield gives 9 deaths. For 100,000 unvaccinated children the rate of Small-pox mortality actually observed gives 4,400 deaths.” The following figures may also be quoted from p. xvii: “ Per thousand of the number of persons over 10 in each class— The attack rate in persons twice vaccinated was The attack rate in persons once vaccinated was The attack rate in persons not vaccinated was The death rate among persons twice vaccinated was The death rate among persons once vaccinated was The death rate among persons not vaccinated was 3 19 94 0-08 1-00 51-00 ” Dr. Barry also says : “ The twice vaccinated persons over 10 years of age as compared with the unvaccinated persons of the same age living in the town, had a 31-fold immunitj' against attack by Small-pox and had a 640-fold security against death by Small-pox.” If space pennitted, such quotations could be multiplied ad libitum ; but these are, I think, sufficient to prove what were the actual facts of the outbreak in Sheffield, and what were the views of Dr. Barry, who studied the epidemic, endorsed by Dr. Buchanan, who drafted and signed the introduction to the report from which the above quotations have been excerpted. Sheffield is again in the throes of an epidemic of Small-pox, in a form which is certainly reverting from the very mild type with which we have recently been familiar to a form quite indistinguishable from “ old-fashioned Small-pox,” with a grave and, I fear, disfiguring eruption, and in many cases with severe constitutional disturbance. The city has for many years maintained special houses for the isolation of contacts, and, of course, adequate provision has been made for the isolation and treatment of cases. I think I may claim that Sheffield has fullj' carried out those “ modern methods of fighting the disease ” which Dr. Millard states have taken the place of infant vaccination and have proved so successful. In Sheffield these measures have now failed, and we are faced with an outbreak of which no one can predict the limits. Visiting these cases daily for purposes of diagnosis, and noting the absolute precision with which the disease singles out the unvaccinatcd memlwrs of the com- munity, it is, to me, disheartening to find so eminent and so highly esteemed a colleague as Dr. Killick Millai-d pul)lishing statements which will certainly be mis-
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