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32
Zymotic Diseases.—Sanitarians will perhaps hereafter
chiefly remember the year 1871 by the truly fearful mortality
caused in all parts of this country by Small Pox—
a loss of life, in great part preventible, and attributable
either to the total neglect of vaccination in many
cases, or to the inefficient manner in which it is sometimes
performed, owing to the frequent deficiency of fresh lymph
elsewhere than at the appointed Public Vaccination Stations,
where arm-to arm vaccination, the only mode of
performing the operation on which reliance can be placed,
is always adopted; as well as to the fact that the protective
influence of vaccination requires renewal at about
the age of puberty, the protection hitherto afforded
appearing to wear out at that period of life, as a consequence
of the great organic and functional changes which
then occur.
That this subject affects all ranks of the community
alike may be demonstrated by the fact that out of 264
deaths in this Parish from Small Pox amongst all classes,
only 24 cases proved fatal under the care of the Poor Law
Medical Officers; and the deaths of 50 persons, or just
20 per cent, of the total number, occurred amongst the
middle and trading classes.
The Small Pox epidemic excepted, the mortality from
Zymotic disease has been low compared with former years,
and had we not been thus exceptionally visited, abundant
proof would have been given of the good results produced
by the enormous sanitary work which has been so admirably
carried out in this Parish for the 16 years during
which your Board has had jurisdiction over it.
Had the ordinary mortality from Small Pox prevailed,
viz., a mean average of 11.2 per annum for the preceding
10 years—the total mortality for this Sub-district would
have been at the rate of 21.2 per 1000 per annum, and