The truth about vaccination : being a report on vaccination as a branch of preventive medicine / by Ernest Hart.

  • Hart, Ernest, 1835-1898
Date:
1895
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The truth about vaccination : being a report on vaccination as a branch of preventive medicine / by Ernest Hart. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    died. Of these 425 were vaccinated and only 8 of them (or 1'8 per cent.) died. The remaining 88 were unvaccinated and 36 (or 40'9 per cent.) of them died. Looking more closely at the figures, we find that there were no vaccinated cases whatever under 5 years of age, but that 50 unvaccinated children under that age were attacked, and 20 (or 40 per cent.) of them died. Between 5 and 10 years of age there were 4 vaccinated cases, all mild and non-fatal, whilst there were 11 unvaccinated cases of that age, 9 of them confluent and 2 fatal. Above 10 years of age there were 421 vaccinated cases, 325 of them being “discrete” or mild, 9G of them “semiconfluent or “confluent, or severe, and only 8 (or 1'8 per cent.) of them fatal; whilst of the 21 unvaccinated cases above 10 all were severe, and 14 (or 66 per cent.) were fatal. Two revaccinated persons were attacked, but in one of them the revaccination had taken place thirty-four years previously, and in the other the revaccination had been inefficiently performed five years previously. Of the hospital officials 1 only was attacked, and that during the first week of the epidemic before revaccination. All the others were revaccinated, and all escaped small-pox. Oldham. Oldham is the centre of antivaccination. In fact, it may be said that at present the Vaccination Acts are a dead letter in the town. Although the good people of Oldham may possibly not profit by their striking experiences of small-pox in 1893, yet it is worth putting the facts on record for the benefit of others who are still amenable to reason in this matter. It will be seen from the table that between January, 1892, and June, 1893, 605 cases of small-pox were treated in the Westhulme Hospital, the cases coming from Oldham, Chadderton, and Royton. Of these, 15 were vaccinated children under 10 years of age and all recovered ; 97 were unvaccinated children under 10, and 27 (or 27'8 per cent.) died ; 431 were vaccinated adults, and of these 19 (or 4-4 per cent.) died, whilst 51 were unvaccinated adults, of whom 14 (or 27'4 per cent.) died. In a very careful and comprehensive report on this outbreak, Dr. Niven, then medical officer of health, showed that he did