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58.8. There were no deaths among the vaccinated under the age
of 15 years, hut of 83 unvaccinated children, under 10 years old,
31 (49.1 per cent.) died.
The foregoing statistics will probably suffice to satisfy mo3t persons
of the value of vaccination as a protective measure. Were there
any hope of convincing those who dispute its efficacy, I might enlarge
on the subject, and show that the degree of protection is proportional
to the quantity and quality of vaccination—the mortality (6'5 per cent,
on all vaccinated cases) having ranged from less than 2 per cent, in
persons who had been "well" vaccinated (described as "vaccinized"),
to 8 per cent, in the "imperfectly" vaccinated, and to 14.7 per cent, in
those who presented "traces" only, of marks; the per centage mortality
among the unvaccinated being, as already stated, 48 per cent.
THE INDICTMENT AGAINST FULHAM HOSPITAL.
The charge against the hospital of being the cause of the prevalence
of small-pox in the surrounding parishes—Fulham, Kensington, Chelsea
—has been maintained with undiminished persistency to the present
time. The epidemic, it is said, fluctuates directly with the number of
patients in the hospital—nothing avails to stamp it out so long as these
are numerous: the air is saturated at such times with small-pox
particles—the concentrated poison being carried across hundreds of
yards of well-wooded space to fall like a malignant dew on the people
in the vicinity.
Such, in substance, is the indictment brought against the hospital by
persons who do not appear to have enquired whether the spread of the
disease might not be otherwise accounted for? and who have not, by
the process of eliminating ordinary modes of spread, in particular
instances, enhanced the probability of their own theory. It is difficult
to deal with such bold assertions : practically impossible as it is to
disprove them; as impossible, in fact, as it is to prove them.
For my own part I have never ventured to deny that an infectiousdisease
hospital is liable to become a danger to the people in its vicinity
if not properly managed; but I have, in former reports, stated the
groundsfor my belief that proper precautions have been taken in respect
of this institution to guard against danger, viz., by well-considered
rules, faithfully carried out, and designed to isolate the hospital and its