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MORTALITY OF THE CITY OF LONDON.
13
the disease, it is impossible to doubt that the
severity of its attack mainly depends on conditions
peculiar to the person of the patient, and that no
perfection of external circumstances will ensure
mildness of infection. But on the other hand it
is so certain, that, under attacks of the disease at
first equally malignant, adequate ventilation with
pure air will enable one patient to wrestle successfully
against the poison, while another, less favourably
circumstanced, will rapidly sink beneath its
influence, that I have no hesitation in assuring you,
in respect of the 213 deaths registered under this
head, that a "majority would have been avoided
under improved domestic arrangements.
In the fourth column, you will read of 91 deaths
by small pox. Your judgment will not be a harsh
one, if you assume that 90 of these were the result
of criminal negligence. Under the present administration
of the Poor Laws, vaccination is not
only accessible to all members of the community,
but is literally pressed on the acceptance of the
poor. Those stupid prejudices, which for some
years retarded the universal adoption of Jenner's
great discovery, have now died away; the neglect
of vaccination must be regarded as the omission of
a recognised and imperative duty. Deaths of children,
arising in this parental neglect, ought to be
considered in the same light as if they arose in the
neglect to feed or to clothe; and I am disposed to
believe, that the readiest way of bringing this view