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Vaccination.—There is but one known protective against smallpox—vaccination;
if a person has been efficiently vaccinated in
childhood, and efficiently re-vaccinated at or after puberty, he is as
safe against the contagion of small-pox as he can possibly be rendered.
The late Mr. Marson, who was for 40 years Resident Medical Officer
of the London Small-pox Hospital at Highgate, has stated that he
has never known small-pox to affect any one of the nurses or servants
so protected.
The official returns from the Hospitals of the Metropolitan Asylum
Board show that in the two epidemics, the nurses and servants of
those establishments were protected from small-pox by efficient vaccination,
and every person employed was subjected to secondary vaccination
previous to entering on their duties there.
Vaccination of Infants.—Mr. Yardley, the Vaccination Officer
of the Guardians, habitually visits, whether small-pox is epidemic or
not, houses which are let out in tenements, to discover unvaccmated
children, and urge parents to take such children to the public vaccinator.
But notwithstanding this frequent visitation, many children in
our migratory population escape vaccination.
Re-Vaccination.—Medical men rightly think that all persons
ought to be re-vaccinated as they become adults, and if this secondary
vaccination be well performed, the person is protected for life, and this
opinion appears to be justified by the experience of the re-vaccination
of attendants in all the small-pox hospitals.
The following return, kindly supplied to me by Mr. Yardley, relating
to the vaccination of children born in the District, will be found
interesting:—