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
City of Westminster 1902
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Westminster, City of]
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vaccinated children, none of those stated to have been vaccinated were
under 10 years of age, and there were no fatal cases among the
vaccinated under 25 years of age, whereas among the unvaccinated,
cases appeared at all ages, from infants of a few days old to persons
of 54 years.
Table XXI.—
| Vaccinated. | Discrete. | Confluent. | Hæmorrhagic. | Total. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cases. | Deaths. | Cases. | Death?. | Cases. | Deaths. | Cases. | Deaths. | |
| One or more marks | 202 | 5 | 35 | 17 | 4 | 4 | 241 | 26 |
| Stated to have been vaccinated, but no marks visible | 14 | 1 | 7 | 4 | 6 | 6 | 27 | 11 |
| (a.) Unvaccinated | 7 | 1 | 7 | 7 | 3 | 3 | 17 | 11 |
| (b.) Not vaccinated until after date of infection | 7 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 10 | 4 |
| No. statement. | 2 | — | — | — | 4 | 4 | 6 | 4 |
| 232 | 8 | 51 | 30 | 18 | 18 | 301 | 56 | |
The influence of vaccination on the disease is shown graphically
in the subjoined diagrams. Nos. 1 and 2 represent the type of disease,
(No. 1) in more or less vaccinated persons and (No. 2) in unvaccinated
persons. Each square represents 100 cases; severity of case is shown by
darker shading. Nos. 3 and 4 show the percentage of deaths in
vaccinated and unvaccinated. Cases about which there was no statement
or no evidence of vaccination, and those who were vaccinated after
receiving the infection, have been excluded.
Re-vaccinated Persons.—I am indebted to Dr. Bicketts, Superintendent
of the Small-pox Hospital Ships, for information relating to
the condition as to vaccination and re-vaccination of persons admitted
to the ships from Westminster, and I find that 41 persons stated that
they had been re-vaccinated at one time or another. Some knew it was
unsuccessful, and in others (23) there was little or no evidence that
it had been so; in fact, in one instance out of the twenty-three there
were no marks of vaccination visible at all, in two they were very
doubtful, and in nine there were only one or two marks. All the cases
were modified small-pox, except in one instance, in which it was
confluent and fatal; this was a man aged 50 with two marks. There
were eighteen in whom there was some evidence that re-vaccination had
been successful, one (a fatal case) had a total of two marks only, five
had a total of three marks, three had four marks, and ten had more.