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Vaccination and Re-Vaccination.
The Local Government Board, in their reply to a communication of the
Metropolitan Asylums Board, requesting them to hold an official inquiry
into the causes of the recent epidemic of small-pox, remark that, the facts
within their knowledge are quite sufficient to account for the serious mortality
which has occurred from the disease, from October, 1876. The facts
stated are "deficient amount of primary vaccination, inefficient vaccination
of past time, and absence of re-vaccination." I fully agree with the
opinions as stated by the Local Government Board, in accounting for the
fatality of small-pox; and it forcibly strikes me that the very knowledge of
these facts affords the best reason for that Board instituting without delay
the official inquiry asked for, in order to ascertain whether other regulations
than those now in force could not be made, whereby primary vaccination
and re-vaccination might be better performed and more generally enforced.
If, however, the Local Government Board should decline to hold an official
inquiry on the subject, the public will certainly expect that new rules and regulations
will be issued, whereby greater security will be afforded to the people
against the spreading of such a fatal disease. That the existing arrangements
in London are unsatisfactory, is shown by the severity of the disease having
been so much greater in the Metropolis than in other densely populated
English cities and towns.
In the last Quarterly Report for England and Wales by the RegistrarGeneral,
it is stated that "only 179 deaths were referred to small-pox,
against 716 and 825 in the two preceding Quarters; of these 179 fatal cases,
144 occurred in London and its outer ring of sub-urban Districts; indeed
16-3 occurred in the Metropolis, and in the three registration divisions containing
the home counties, whereas but 16 fatal cases were recorded in the
rest of England and Wales."