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146
It must be remembered, moreover, that the mortality from
small-pox in vaccinated children, small though it be, is unduly
high, for the reason doubtless, that so much of the vaccination
which passes current is imperfect; there still being, as we are
informed, medical men who systematically evade the spirit of
the law, and disregard the teachings of experience, as summed
up in instructions issued by the Board for the guidance of
public vaccinators. A prime condition of vaccination, ''successful"
from the official standpoint, is the production of four
typical vesicles; but we are told that there is a "form of private
vaccination that offers itself in competition with public vaccination,
and which parades its inefficiency as a reason for its
acceptance by ignorant people. Its professors say to young
mothers, 'Do you come to me, and I won't hurt your baby; I'll
make only cne place on its arm, not four, as those public
vaccinators do.' "It is not surprising, therefore, to learn that
although vaccination is done in about equal proportions by public
vaccinators and private practitioners, the proportion of deaths
from small-pox, among children under ten, is far greater among
the patients of private practitioners than among children taken
to public vaccinators; and this, despite reasons, to which
Dr. Buchanan refers, which might fairly lead us to expect a
different result, were it not for the admittedly superior average
quality of public vaccination.
Here, then, we have a record of the "saving of 12,000
lives, by vaccination, to children under ten years of age" in the
one year, 1881, when the total mortality from small-pox did not
amount to one-third of the mortality in the epidemic of 1871;
a saving of life, justly, I believe, attributed to the operation of
the Vaccination Acts of 1867 and 1871. It only needs further
to be mentioned that in the "two periods of ten years immediately
preceding 1871, 59 and 54 per cent., or more than half
of the total small-pox mortality, was borne by children under
five years old," whilst "now, only 28 per cent., little more than
a quarter of the total small-pox mortality, falls upon such