London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972
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Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Islington 1911
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Islington, Metropolitan Borough of]
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227
[1911
How is it possible for anyone, educated or uneducated, to pass over the
judgment of this great lawyer, a Lord Chancellor, who was accustomed to
examine and digest evidence, in favour of vaccination ? And yet little men
step in, and arrogate to themselves a superior knowledge, and practically say
that it is all nonsense. Some of us, however, who know the power of smallpox,
and who have seen it doing its deadly work, can fully appreciate Lord
Herschell's judgment, and we sincerely regret that the law has been modified to
please men who for the most part have never seen the disease at its worst, or
even at its best, and who unreasonably desire theentire repeal of the vaccination
laws. It is to be hoped that it may be long before this country learns the truth
about vaccination in the hard school of adversity due to an epidemic, for
which it is now daily storing up the fuel for a great conflagration.
| Years. | No. of Births. | Successfully Vaccinated. | Insusceptible to Vaccination. | Died Unvaccinated. | No. of exemption certificates. | Postponed by medical certificate. | •Remaining. | Cases (cols. 6, 7, & 8), not finally vaccinated per 100 births.+ | Ditto in London. | Ditto in Rest of England. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
* The figures in Column 8 are obtained by adding together the numbers given in
Columns 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 and deducting the total from the number in Column 2.
†The figures in Column 9 are percentage statements, obtained by adding together the
numbers given in Columns 6, 7 and 8 and applying them to the numbers in Column 2.
Q 2