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184
1908]
" Such as have not had the small-pox in the early period of life are
not only rendered unhappy but likewise in a great measure unfit for sustaining
many of the most useful and important offices. Few people would
choose even to hire a servant who had not had the small-pox, far less to
purchase a slave who had the chance of dying of this disease. How could
a physician or surgeon who had never had the small-pox attend others
under that malady? Thus, besides the continual fears and anxiety which
haunt those persons who have not had small-pox, we might show numberless
inconveniences which arise from it. For example: How deplorable is
the situation of females who arrive at mature age without having had
small-pox? A woman with child seldom survives this disease. And if
an infant happens to be seized with the small-pox upon the mother's
breast who had not had the disease herself, the scene must be distressing.
If she continues to suckle the child, it is at the peril of her own life; and
if she weans it in all probability it will perish. How often is the affectionate
mother forced to leave her house and abandon her children at
the very time when her care is most necessary? But should parental
affection get the better of her fears, the consequences will often prove
fatal. I have known the tender mother and her infant child laid in the
same grave, both untimely victims to this dreadful malady."
Let us hope that the United Kingdom will never see such days as these
again, but rather look forward to a time when this country will be as well
protected as Germany is to-day, for there Small Pox is so rare that they have
no longer any use for Small Pox hospitals. If, however, the number of persons
who are exempted under the "conscience" clause of the Act daily become
more numerous, it will more than ever be incumbent, indeed, a sacred
obligation,on those who believe in the power of vaccination to prevent Small
Pox to see that not only they themselves, but their children, are duly vaccinated,
and, after the lapse of a number of years, re-vaccinated.
If the records and statistics of Small Pox in connection with vaccination
are studied by inquirers, as they were by the Royal Commissioners, they
will find that they show beyond a shadow of doubt that vaccination
is an almost certain protection against Small-Pox. If this be so, it
may be asked, how is it that anti-vaccinators have not been convinced
by the statistics? It is a difficult question to answer, but perhaps a
teply is best given by an incident that the late Dr. James Grey Glover,
so well-known in Islington during the last generation, and who was an ardent
advocate of vaccination, related to me a few months before his death. He was
arguing the question of vaccination one evening during the course of a dinner
with a well-known anti-vaccinator, and when he put it to him that the statistics