View report page

121
Restricting the comparison to the vaccinated and unvaccinated
people of all ages who lived in invaded houses.
Per thousand of the two classes of people:—
The attack rate in the vaccinated was 230
The attack rate in the unvaccinated was 750
The death-rate in the vaccinated was 11
The death-rate in the unvaccinated was 372
Thus people if they were vaccinated had a more than treble immunity
against attack by small-pox, and a 34-fold security against death
by small-pox, as compared with their not vaccinated fellows,
residents in invaded houses.
The following facts are interesting as showing the comparative
protection afforded by vaccination to persons actually
attacked by small-pox against the more severe form of the
disease, which is often followed by disfigurement, and by a
variety of sequela; more or less serious.
The experience of 1,741 patients treated in hospitals gave 17.2 severe and
confluent cases out of every 100 small-pox patients of all ages who
had been vaccinated, and 81.5 of the same forms of small-pox out
of every 100 attacks in people of all ages who had not been vaccinated.
For children under 10 the corresponding figures were 9
and 78.
In the hospitals the familiar immunity of revaccinated
persons in attendance on the sick was observed.
Of 161 employed 18 had had small-pox and none of these fell ill: 02
persons had been vaccinated in infancy only, and of these 6
were attacked and 1 died; the remaining 81 persons had been
successfully revaccinated, and not one of these contracted smallpox.
Of 830 troops nominally all revaccinated, 12 men were
attacked by small-pox and one died. The operation of revaccination
had been attempted on these 12 men, but had been unsuccessfully
performed. Of 372 men in the police force 10 constables
who had been vaccinated, but not re-vaccinated, took small-pox
before February 10,1888, when an order for universal revaccination
of the force was issued: thenceforward till the end of the
epidemic, there was no other attack among the police. Of 290
men and boys on the permanent staff of the Sheffield Post Office,