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result from preventable causes, that is from one or other of the various
forms of inflammatiou. Further, when we consider the ease with which
the Vaccine Pocks may be injured, rubbed, or fouled, and when you
consider the terrible conditions under which, unfortunately, thousands of our
fellow working men have to live, it is hardly to be wondered at that an open
wound like vaccination does sometimes go wrong.
All things occasionally go wrong in this imperfect world, and
wherever you turn you will find that a certain amount of penalty has
to be paid for anything we have, however valuable and beneficent it
may be. Gas explosions, railway accidents, ship wrecks, fires, all contribute
something to the sorrow and suffering of the world, yet no one
in his senses would give up gas, or railways, or ships, or houses because
some injury is caused and some lives are lost by their use. Surely it is
a question of degree It is no use, in the presence of an enemy, discarding
a weapon (because you fear it may not be absolutely free from
danger to yourself), until you have something better. In the case of
Small Pox there is no substitute, and if you discard Vaccination, you
are left defenceless and without any protection but flight in the presence
of a relentless foe. It cannot even be pretended that the practice of
Vaccination hinders the adoption of every other useful means of combating
Small I'm When first I began to consider these questions
seriously, I oast about for something with which the risk caused by
Vaccination (infinitesimally small though it really is) might fairly
be compared, and I came to the conclusion that the use of
Anaesthetics (Chloroform and Ether) was on the whole the greatest
blessing which my Profession had ever been able to confer on suffering
mankind. Now, as you are well aware, a certain number of deaths
occur every year through the use of Anaesthetics. The percentage
number of deaths from Chloroform is about seven times as great as that
from the complications or accidents of Vaccination. The deaths from
Ether are considerably fewer than from Chloroform, but even so, the
total directly traceable to Anaesthetics is considerably greater than that
resulting from Vaccination. It is interesting to compare the number
of Vaccinal Injuries with fatality from Small Pox (even in a mild
epidemic) where the practice of Vaccination has been allowed to lapse.
In Leicester, during the outbreak of 1891-2, 100 unvaccinated children
were attacked, of whom 12 died. Thus in this community (with an
unvaccinated child population), with all the boasted safeguards of
Isolation and Sanitation, as many children died from Small Pox as,
according to the calculation given above might be estimated to die or
to suffer from serious injury amongst a like number of children (100)
in 1,680 years, or in about 169,908 Vaccinations. During the same
epidemic only 2 vaccinated children under 10 years of age were attacked
by Small Pox, wither of whom died.