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the whole had been revaccinated at the time of their engagement.
Throughout the epidemic, up to August, 1888, no member of the
staff contracted small-pox.
It may here be mentioned that the epidemic of small-pox,
1887-88, gave rise during the two years to 22.2 attacks and
2.07 deaths per 1,000 population of all ages, and that the whole
population of the Borough has now-a-days, owing solely to the
enormous reduction of the death-rate in children, a small-pox
death-rate of 72 per cent, below its former amount. Where
people over 10 have undergone a second vaccination, they have
recovered the immunity from small-pox which they had as
children. The following further illustration of the protection
afforded by vaccination is given:—
If the vaccinated children of Sheffield up to the date of the vaccination
census had been attacked at the rate that the unvaccinated were
attacked, there would have been 7,000 attacks among such children
in the place of the actual 353, and there would have been close
upon 3,000 deaths amongst such children in the place of the actual
6 deaths; or there would have been up to the conclusion of the
epidemic, 4,400 deaths among such children in place of the actual
9 deaths. This is what vaccination has done for Sheffield children
under 10 years of age.
Dr. Buchanan makes the following reflection:
If we can imagine a complete forfeiture in 1887 by all the inhabitants of
the protection they have from vaccination, the 200,000 people over
10 living in Sheffield would (at the current rate of death observed
among unvaccinated persons of that age up to the date of the census)
have experienced over 10,000 deaths instead of the actual 368.
In a concluding paragraph Dr. Buchanan observes that
Dr. Barry says nothing in his report of deaths resulting from
the vaccination of 9,000 children each year in Sheffield; he
himself therefore states, as regards the last three years (having
no earlier data) that no death certificate received from Sheffield
has made any mention whatever of vaccination. The current
rate of the country would give for a population of 300,000
persons 0.5 (or 1 in 600,000) as the yearly number of such
death certificates.