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disease itself, moreover, instead of appearing from time to time in
epidemic form, as it does now, would be always with us as in the prevaccination
days.
The Bill is being vigorously opposed in many influential quarters,
and your Vestry were among the first, if not first, in petitioning
the House in deprecation of any relaxation of the law in the direction
indicated in the Government measure.*
As bearing on the question of the protective power of vaccination,
and re-vaccination, reference may be made to a circular letter, issued in
October by the Managers of the Metropolitan Asylum District, in
which they summed up the experience, acquired in the hospitals, by
the Medical Superintendents of the several small-pox hospitals under
the control of the Board. The Managers state that "the observations of
these gentlemen confirm former opinions on the subject, and
establish beyond doubt the mitigating influence in small-pox cases of
successful primary vaccination, and the preventive powers of efficient
re-vaccination." It is needless to quote at length the valuable
statistics furnished: but it may suffice to state that the mortality wa3
8.8 per cent, of the vaccinated, and no less than 44.4 per cent, of the
unvaccinated, the observations extending to a total of 15,171 cases,
treated in the hospitals in the epidemic which began in 1876.
It is added, that " no case of small-pox has come within the cognizance
of either of the Medical Superintendents, of any person who had been
efficiently vaccinated, and successfully re-vaccinated. Moreover, the
nurses and servants employed from time to time at the various
hospitals during the epidemic, have enjoyed almost absolute immunity
from infection: and the few— some half-dozen amongst nearly one
thousand— who contracted the disease, whilst discharging their duties,
had from some cause or other escaped re-vaccination before entering
the wards." The conclusion is, that if vaccination and re-vaccination
were successfully accomplished at the proper times, small-pox
"instead of being, as it is at present, a common and extremely fatal
disease, would be a comparatively rare one, and so little fatal that
few, if any deaths would result from it."
* The Bill was subsequently withdrawn.