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
Poplar 1898
Annual report of the Medical Officer of Health for the North District, comprising the Parish of St. Mary Stratford-le-Bow
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The following is the record of small-pox for Bow since 1880:-
| Deaths. | Deaths. | Notifications. | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1880 | 7 | 1890 | 0 | 0 |
| 1881 | 3 | 1891 | 0 | 0 |
| 1882 | 0 | 1892 | 0 | 0 |
| 1883 | 0 | 1893 | 1 | 21 |
| 1884 | 8 | 1894 | 4 | 35 |
| 1885 | 1895 | 0 | 5 | |
| 1886 | 0 | 1896 | 0 | 1 |
| 1887 | 0 | 1897 | 0 | 6 |
| 1888 | 0 | 1898 | 0 | 0 |
| 1889 | 0 |
The record of the deaths from small-pox in Bow since 1880 is
therefore exceptionally favourable, there having been only 24 deaths
in 15 years.
VACCINATION.
We are about to commence a year under the provisions of a new
Vaccination Act, and as there has been for so many
years so wide a gulf separating those who believe in the
virtue of vaccination and those who believe in its vices—and good
and conscientious men are ranged on both sides—I think it is
advisable, if possible, to bridge over this gulf; at any rate I will try,
and in my endeavour shall consider dispassionately that both sides
are equal in their desire to promote the general good.
At the start you must know that, as I have frequently before
stated, I am a firm believer in the preventive power of vaccination
against small-pox; I here mean the introduction of vaccine lymph
alone into the human system, properly performed. A brief description
of the operation, as it has been performed, will indicate, by its
impropriety, what I do not mean by the term vaccination.
At the request of the mother or nurse it has frequently been done
in less than four places, sometimes in one only. It has been done