London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972
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Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Kensington 1886
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Kensington]
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vaccination is more or less " successful "—it should be unnecessary
to say anything; but the pertinacity with which some misguided
persons still decry the most beneficent of medical discoveries'
shows no sign of abatement, and as their teaching is calculated to
prejudice the general public against the wise compulsion authorized
by law, I do not hesitate to refer again to the pregnant
proofs of the efficacy of vaccination, as a protection against
small-pox, contained in the annual report for 1881 of the Medical
Officer to the Local Government Board, lately republished. Dr.
Buchanan refers, in the first place, 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 from which I extract
the following Table:—
| Death rate of people of subjoined ages. | Per million of each age of the vaccinated class. | Per million of each age of the unvaccinated class. |
|---|---|---|
| All ages | 90 | 3,350 |
| Under 20 years | 61 | 1,520 |
| Under 5 years | 40½ | 5,950 |
Mainly, however, Dr. Buchanan limits the scope of his further
enquiry on the subject to the mortality from small-pox among
children under the age of ten years, for the sufficient reason that
the limit embraces the period within which vaccination has been
efficiently compulsory.
The population of London under ten was 916,784, on Census
night, 1881, of whom, in round numbers, 55,000 were unvaccinated
and 861,000 were vaccinated. In 1881 some 782 small-pox
deaths occurred among the 55,000 unvaccinated, as against 125
among the vaccinated. " Upon equal numbers of the two classes,
e 2