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37
Zymotic Diseases.— The 11 deaths from the seven
principal zymotic diseases, contrasted with the 29 of the
previous year, and with the average of the previous nine
years, is satisfactory. Small pox was unusually rife during
a portion of the past year, but resulted in death within the
sub-district in one instance only.
Two other cases of a very malignant type, removed to
the Small Pox Hospital, proved fatal in that Institution,
and were of course registered there.
These fatal cases were all of adult persons in whom no
marks of vaccination could be detected.
The alarm amongst all classes was great during the time
the disease prevailed in the parish, but it has happily led
to a larger number than usual seeking the protection of
vaccination since that event and down to a recent period;
the good effects of this extended employment of the only
protective against the horrors of such a malady as Small
Pox have been most manifest in this sub-district, for there
has not been a trace of that disease, even in its most
modified form, for many months past.*
* An erroneous notion prevails, and there is reason to believe the mischief
resulting from it has a very extended operation throughout the kingdom,
in deterring respectable persons from securing efficient vaccination
for their children, that the provisions of the Vaccination Extension Act
apply to paupers only; and further, that parents in good circumstances
cannot, without rendering themselves recipients of relief in the manner
of paupers, apply to a district public vaccinator for the gratuitous
performance of even the surgical proceeding comprehended in the mere
insertion of the vaccine prophylactic, and at the same time employ
and pay the practitioner for any contingent medical advice or treatment
that may be required or asked for at his hands and in his private
capacity!
In order to show what a mischievous error persons who hold such views
fall into, the following most decisive opinions of the Poor Law Board
on the subject are submitted.
Extract from an Instructional Letter to Boards of Guardians—Official
Circular, September 1840.—"The provision for vaccination is now
therefore legally extended to the whole of the population; to all those who are
independent as well as to those who are still dependent on relief, or who may