Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Woolwich]
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11
who was said to have been revaccinated 24 years before. The
statement was not confirmed. Not a single one of the fatal
cases had been vaccinated within 20 years: of the 15 deaths
in the unvaccinated 7 were under 20 years of age.
11. Contacts. 1,673 persons known to have been in
contact with cases of Small-pox were under the observation of
your Medical Officers and Sanitary Inspectors. 1,171 of these
were vaccinated within 3 days of the exposure to infection, or
had been vaccinated in the previous 10 years; only 1 of such
protected persons contracted Small-pox from the case to which
they had been exposed, or a proportion of 1 per 1,000 protected
persons were infected after exposure. 420 contacts refused
vaccination or were otherwise unprotected by vaccination in
the 10 years before or within 3 days after exposure. 45 of
these contracted Small-pox, or 107 per 1,000 partially
protected persons were infected after exposure. In other
words, a person recently vaccinated (i.e., within a period of 10
years) is a hundred times more likely to escape infection than
1 unvaccinated or only protected by a vaccination 10 to 50
years ago.
Eight of the contacts were altogether unprotected by
vaccination (as above defined) and 2 of these were attacked,
i.e., 250 quite unprotected persons per 1,000 contracted Smallpox
after exposure.
The following table summarises the above statement:—
Susceptibility to infection of vaccinated and unvaccinated contacts.
No. Exposed. | No. Attacked. | Rate per 1,000. | |
---|---|---|---|
Protected | 1171 | 1 | 0.9 |
Partially protected | 412 | 43 | 104.4 |
Unprotected | 8 | 2 | 250.0 |