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Notwithstanding all the care that is taken by the Medical Officers of the Union and
the other public vaccinators, and the zeal and self-devotion manifested by them in the dis •
charge of their onerous duties, in searching out the unvaccinated cases among the poor;
and notwithstanding the anxiety manifested by the Guardians to promote vaccination by
their causing to be issued hand-bills and placards, informing the public of the danger
arising from small-pox, and pointing out the penalty which is incurred by parties refusing
to have their children vaccinated when they are four months old, and by giving publicity
to the names and residences of the public vaccinators, yet the deep rooted prejudices
of some unthinking and self-conceited persons occasionally prevail, and they
refuse to accept the proffered boon. In more than one instance, to my own
knowledge, parents hatfe actually declared to a medical man, anxious to vaccinate the
young members of their families, when small-pox had just proved fatal to one of them,
"that they would rather see all their children dead with small-pox, than that one of
them should be vaccinated." It is really difficult to know what to do with such cases
as these, but so long as parents obstinately and ignorantly refuse to have their children
vaccinated, so long shall we be unable to eradicate small-pox, or mitigate its severity.
When small-pox prevails, no age appears to be exempt from its ravages; for the infant
of a week old, and the very aged,* have not escaped its fatal influence. The prejudice
against vaccination is generally strongly manifested in a poor neighbourhood, whenever
a child has suffered from an eruptive disease after vaccination. The eruption, whether
syphilitic, eczematous, or of any other kind, common to children at the time of teething,
is always attributed to vaccination, and the surgeon is erroneously blamed for using
"foul and dirty matterNow every medical man knows that children, at all ages,
are liable to eruptive diseases; and that syphilis does not always manifest itself on the
child at birth, but many weeks frequently elapse before the peculiar eruption appears;
and when it happens that a child, whose constitution from birth is tainted with syphilis,
has been vaccinated, the parents, although they themselves are alone to blame for the
diseased condition of their offspring, take the opportunity of casting the blame on
vaccination. It may be satisfactory to know that no other disease than the cow-pox
can be communicated from one child to another, by the operation of vaccination, if the
lymph be taken from a true Jennerian vesicle : I may therefore boldly affirm, that
the assertions of parents interested in concealing their own shame, that their children
have been inoculated with other diseases at the time of vaccination, are incorrect.
That the operation of the Vaccination Acts has not been attended with the beneficial
result which the public had anticipated, is obvious from the following facts:—
1.—That many children, above four months old, are unvaccinated, and die of
small-pox, as is shown by the returns of the local registrars of the district.†
2.—That many children die of small-pox after vaccination, as is shown in the
returns of the Small-pox Hospital. The records of this valuable institution,
the only hospital exclusively devoted to small-pox in Europe, inform us
*A woman aged 83 died of the disease in the Small-pox Hospital.
†n Dunk Street the death of a child from small-pox, 3 years old, is registered, and the registrar makes the
following note:—"The mother states that this child has been twice vaccinated, but without success. Three other
children in the same family have been attacked, but, having been successfully vaccinated, they have recovered."
The local registrar should state in every instance, whqn death is occasioned by small pox, whether the child was
vaccinated or not. In some cases the registrars have done so, and in others tiiey have not.