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in a position much more advantageous not only than the unvaccinated,
but than adults who have only been vaccinated in
infancy.
There is another conclusion suggested by the evidence to
which we ought to advert, for it is of importance. Where
re-vaccinated persons were attacked by or died from Small-Pox,
the re-vaccination had for the most part been performed a considerable
number of years before the attack. There were very
few cases where a short period only had elapsed between the
re-vaccination and the attack of Small-Pox. This seems to show
that it is of importance in the case of any persons specially
exposed to the risk of contagion that they should be re-vaccinated,
and that in the case even of those who have been twice vaccinated
with success, if a long interval since the last operation has elapsed,
the operation should be repeated for a third, and even for a forth
time.
Much criticism has been applied to the writings of Jenner,
and of other early advocates of the practice of vaccination, and
strenuous efforts have been made to shew that their observations
cannot always be relied on, and that their reasoning was at times
unsound. This appears to us, even if it were established, to be
of little importance as a guide to the conclusion which ought to
be arrived at on the question whether vaccination affords any
protection against Small-Pox. We have now in our possession
the experience of more than half a century, during which facts
relating to the effect of vaccination upon Small-Pox have been
carefully recorded. If a study of this experience taught us that
vaccination had not exercised any beneficial influence as a protection
against Small-Pox, that the ravages of the disease were
as great in the case of the vaccinated as of the un-vaccinated, and
that no difference could be observed in the manner in which it
treated the two classes, we could have no faith in vaccination as
a prophylactic, however apparently accurate the observations of
Jenner and his associates, or however apparently conclusive their