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4
record as regards vaccination). I cannot too strongly impress upon the minds
of all persons engaged in vaccinating children the importance of attending to
the rules laid down for properly performing the operation of vaccination. From
the returns of the Small-pox Hospital (which I need scarcely say are of undoubted
authority) it appears that the mortality from small-pox is in the inverse
proportion of the number of well-formed cicatrices; thus, if four good
cicatrices are apparent not one person in 100 attacked will die of the disease;
but in those having only one imperfect or indistinct cicatrix one in every eight
or nine attacked will die. In those unvaccinated, including adults and children,
the mortality is 35 per cent; but of children under 5 years of age it is
50 per cent. The mortality among the vaccinated, including all, whether
well or indifferently vaccinated, is from 7 to 8 per cent. It is of the utmost
importance to the well-being of the public, as regards the immunity from
small-pox, that every child should be vaccinated in at least 4 places* at
or about the age of 3 or 4 months; and, in order still further to extend the
benefits of vaccination to all the children born in the district, a list of the
births with their residences should be given to the public vaccinator by the
district registrar once a month or oftener, so that the parents of such children
who are likely to neglect the duty of having their children vaccinated might
be called upon by the district vaccinator, who, if he obtained the consent of
the parent or guardian of the child, might at the time of his visit vaccinate
the child. As many poor persons cannot afford the time to take the child after
vaccination to the public vaccinator for inspection some pecuniary inducement
might with propriety be held out to those to whom time is of importance.
The deaths from measles were 33; from scarlet fever 29 ; from diphtheria 1;
from hooping cough 15; from diarrhoea 22; and from fever 52. In the
corresponding quarter of last year the deaths from epidemic diseases were 100.
Diseases of the lungs proved fatal to 103; consumption was fatal to 72;
diseases of the heart to 29; and tubercular diseases to 37. The deaths arising
from accidents or negligence were 35, of which 14 were caused by burns or
scalds, 19 from violence, 2 from suffocation in bed, and 1 (a child 8 months
old) from poison. In this last-mentioned case an inquest was not held, the
cause of death having been certified to have been from" diarrhoea, accelerated
by, if not wholly originating in, arsenical paper-hanging." The death of a
child, aged 8 months, is recorded to have been caused by erysipelas after
vaccination. This is the second death from this cause during the past year.
Two children died from small-pox at the early age of 17 days. In my report
for the quarter ending March, 1861, a death is recorded to have ensued from
* The returns of the Small Pox Hospital show that 80 per cent of the patients admitted had been previously
vaccinated. Many of the patients have been imperfectly vaccinated.