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112
a loss of 4.4 per cent. in the cases, as against 3.3 in the
previous year. This moderate loss may even yet be somewhat
reduced, as the Local Government Board allows Vaccination
Officers a period of twelve months before presentation of a final
return, in order that the statement in respect of the children
born in any given year, may be made as complete as possible.
I believe I am correct in stating that the " loss " in the column
indicating " removal of children to places out of parish unknown,
or which cannot be reached, and cases not having been
found," in the Metropolis, as a whole, is almost double the loss
in Kensington. It is due to the Guardians of the Poor, in this
connexion, to mention that they, as the authority responsible
for carrying out the Vaccination Acts, omit no opportunity of
giving effect to the law, and cordially support their officer in
the discharge of his duty.
In regard to the protection against small-pox afforded by
vaccination—differing in degree as this does in proportion as
the operation is more or less perfectly performed—it might
seem, to the majority of persons, well nigh superfluous to
comment in these days; but unfortunately it is not so, for the
perverse pertinacity with which a noisy, if not considerable,
minority decry this most beneficent of all medical discoveries,
shows no sign of abatement; the teaching of its opponents, moreover,
being of a sort to impress the unthinking masses in a
sense unfavourable to the continuance of the wise compulsion
enforced by Parliament. This being so it becomes a duty,
year by year, to refer to the subject, and on the present occasion
I am glad to be in a position to quote some pregnant facts
submitted to the Local Government Board by their Medical
Officer, Dr. Buchanan, in his report for 1881. Dr. Buchanan,
first of all, refers to the relative mortality from small-pox in the
vaccinated, and in the unvaccinated, inhabitants of London,
which formed the subject of a memorandum which he submitted
to the Board in June, 1881, and containing the following
table:—