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14
availed themselves of the protection of vaccination, which
may have been trifled with, owing to the long absence of
Small Pox, or, perhaps, from disbelief in its value or
capability of preventing the graver disease. Re-vaccination
has been very frequently adopted in persons of mature age,
and more generally than could have been expected, it has
proved successful, the characteristic vesicle of Cow Pox
having been produced. This will lead to two important
deductions;—one, that the effect of vaccine disease may
become impaired through lapse of time, and the other, that
it is possible that sufficient care might not have been
bestowed in distinguishing the true vesicle from a spurious
one,—one of modified common inflammation, which has
often followed the puncture and insertion of the vaccine virus.
Measles proved fatal in 64 cases, showing an increase of
25 on last year's numbers; while Scarlatina declined
largely,—from 128 to 46. The cases of Diphtheria being so
few and having so strong a resemblance to Cynanche
Maligna, I have placed them together in the same column,
in which a reduction will be noticed from 18 to 13 deaths,
notwithstanding the combination.
Whooping Cough was fatal in 53 instances, showing an
increase of 17 in the year.
Diseases of the Lungs were much more fatal, with the
exception of Consumption, which destroyed about the same
number as in the previous year. The inclemency of the
weather during the whole of 1860 will not only be long
remembered on account of its singular intensity, but will
point readily to a cause for the prevalence and mortality
of the several diseases affecting the air passages.
The following summary of the mortality of the first
quarter of the present year will bring the observations to