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Annual Report of the Medical Officer of Health—1866—7. 15

Zymotic diseases include those which are epidemic, endemic, and contagious. The
diseases of this destructive class were fatal to 329 persons ; 18 more than in the year
1865-6. This appears somewhat disheartening; but the increase is not due to the inefficacy
of sanitary measures, but in the main to wilful ignorance, apathy, and prejudice. Smallpox
has killed 44 persons in this district, and has maimed and injured far more. On the
14th day of May, 1796, vaccination was first performed in England; and yet in the year
1866-7 in a population of 55, 510 there are 44 deaths recorded from this foulest of diseases. It
is shewn in a report of the Small-pox Hospital, that we have been suffering from an
epidemic of this disease, which for duration and universality has gone beyond any epidemic
"within the memory of the present generation." If facts are of any value, and if statistics
be allowed as proof, then the benefit which vaccination confers cannot be gainsaid. Dr.
Marson tells us, after an experience derived from thirty years of labour at the Small Pox
Hospital, during which period over 15,000 cases have passed under his notice, that while
the unvaccinated have died at the rate of 37 per cent., the vaccinated have died at the rate
only of 6½ per cent. He tells us more than this: he states from tables most carefully
drawn, that the degree of modifying power is in the exact ratio of the excellence and completeness
of the vaccination, as shewn by the marks. The unvaccinated, as I have stated,
die at the rate of 37 per cent., whilst those imperfectly vaccinated [have a mortality of
nearly 9 per cent.: the thoroughly vaccinated die at about ½ per cent. To say that you
have been vaccinated will not suffice to ensure your safety; for then comes the question,
How was the operation performed ? If imperfectly, you are but one step from the