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9
This table is highly instructive, because the accumulated experience of 70 years
has demonstrated that there is a vast difference in the manner in which small-pox
attacks persons of different ages, according to whether they have, or have not, been
vaccinated, and according to the excellence or badness of the vaccination they have
received. We deal here with a population which is supposed to be a vaccinated one,
and no doubt the vast majority have undergone the operation, more or less
successfully; but among our 210,000 of people, there are a good many who have
not been vaccinated at all, so that the result of an epidemic of small-pox is a mixed
one, so far as the ages at seizure are concerned. It may be taken as certain, that the
more perfect and complete the vaccination of a population, the later in age will be
the period at which the small-pox virus will operate during an epidemic epoch.
Thus it comes to pass, that the numbers attacked at ages under five, or under ten,
as compared with the total attacks at all ages, is an index tolerably faithful of the
completeness or incompleteness of its vaccination. Between the ages of 15 and
25 years, there is a natural tendency, both in the vaccinated and unvaccinated, to
suffer from small-pox contagion, although these two classes of persons suffer very
unequally; but in young children, well vaccinated, the protection afforded by
vaccination is almost perfect, if the vaccination be good. It is no matter
of surprise, then, that 36 per cent. of the cases of small-pox happened
at ages between 15 and 25; but it is a matter of practical import, and
one which demands serious consideration, that as many as 21 per cent.,
or about a fifth of the attacks, occurred in children under 10 years of
age. If the whole population had been vaccinated—assuming the ordinary proportion
of bad vaccination to have prevailed—not more than 10 per cent, ought to have
suffered under this age; and if the vaccination of all had been good, still fewer. The
infantile attacks of small-pox, then, was at least twice as numerous as they should have
been, and as they would have been, had the vaccination of all the children in the
parish been properly attended to. Still we owe it to the general vaccination of our
population, that the epidemic of 1862-8 was not a far more serious affair than it
actually was. A severe epidemic of small-pox tends to drive parents to obtain for
their children a long-neglected protection, and hence, perhaps, in part, it is that the
proportion of children attacked varied in the several years during which the
epidemic lasted. Thus:—
In 1862 31 per cent, of those attacked were under 10 years of age
— 1863 31 „ „ „
1864 39 ,, „ „
— 1865 17 „ „ „
— 1866 25 „ „ „
— 1867 33
-1868 22
People of the lower classes are slow to learn, slow to receive warning, and quick
to forget.