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68
born died without having Small.Pox. Since of these so dying a
large number died at an early age, the number of those dying in
adult and in advanced age without ever having had the disease
would be much less. And in this sense, probably, must be read
the statement of Haygarth, which he gives without supplying the
data on which it is based, namely, that ' some persons are
incapable of infection by the Small.Pox.' The ' proportion of
mankind thus exempted has been observed to amount to i in 20;'
that is to 5 per cent. The persons here referred to are probably
those who lived to an advanced age without taking Small.Pox,
though exposed to infection and possibly (for Haygarth wrote in
the inoculation period) subjected to inoculation.
The records of the London Small.Pox Hospital from 1746
to 1763 showed a fatality of 28.3 per cent., and it has been stated
that during the last 25 years of the last century 32 per cent, of
those admitted succumbed to the disease.
One character of the Small.Pox in the eighteenth century
(and there is nothing to prove the state of things before the
eighteenth century to have been different) is brought out in all
the records in which the ages are given, namely, the large proportion
of the deaths contributed by the very young. Thus, in
Chester, in the epidemic of 1774, all the 202 deaths were of those
under ten years, and a quarter of them under one year. In
Warrington in 1773 all the deaths were of those under nine years.
In Kilmarnock, of the 622 deaths occurring between 1728 and
1763, the ages of nine not being given, only seven were of those
above ten years. The burial registers for the graveyard of St.
Cuthbert's, Canongate, and Buccleuch Street, Edinburgh, show
that during the years 1764—83 the proportion of deaths from
Small.Pox of those below the age of ten years, to every
thousand deaths from that disease at all ages, was 993. Indeed
in all records of epidemics in which the ages are given, the
mortality was mainly amongst infants. It is also seen in the
larger records, covering periods, including both epidemic years.