View report page

10
of chicken pox, 15 of measles, 20 of scarlatina, 53 of
whooping cough, 8 of croup, 106 of diarrhoea, 35 of
continued fever, 45 of rheumatic fever, 8 of erysipelas,
and 9 of ague, 6 of which occurred in non-parishioners.
There were 823 cases of bronchitis, 12 of pleurisy, and
24 of pneumonia.
III.—Small-pox and Vaccination. The unusual prevalence
of small-pox has caused us to devote considerable
attention to the prevention and eradication of the disease,
and especially to vaccination; an operation which is still
so far neglected or mis-understood by certain classes, that
no endeavours to create a sound and correct public opinion
can be superfluous. Hence we crave attention to the
shortest possible view of the facts and logic of vaccination.
How loathsome and terrible a disease the small-pox is,
the present generation, thanks to vaccination, has little
opportunity of knowing by common observation. Yet a
very slight acquaintance with the popular literature of the
early part of the last century may convince them, that it
was, as Dr. Copland observes, "the most generally diffused,
the most frequently epidemic, the most fatal, and the
worst treated, of all known pestilences." It spared no
age, and no rank in life ; and they who escaped death, ran
the greatest risk of blindness, or of permanent ill health,
to say nothing of the scars and disfigurement of the
countenance.
It was noticed, that they who once had the disease,
most rarely (it was commonly thought, never) had it again.
Hence the disease came to be used as a protection against
itself. The custom of implanting it by inoculation,
in a cool season of the year, from a mild specimen,
and with every precaution to ensure as mild an attack as