View report page

9
tion of vaccination, a stop would soon be put to this baneful practice which
I believe is to some extent carried on in London.*
That vaccination is badly performed, the following table, which has
been prepared from the weekly returns of the Registrar General, clearly
shows; for it appears that out of 618 deaths from small pox, which occurred
in the quarter ended on Saturday, 29th June, 1878, 135 or 21.8 per cent. took place after vaccination; whereas, if these patients had been
properly vaccinated, only 1 per cent. of such persons attacked with the
disease would have died. We learn from the tables prepared by the late
Mr. Marson, the resident Medical Officer of the Small Pox Hospital at
Highgate, that the rate of mortality from small pox among persons who
have been properly vaccinated is under 1 per cent.; and from the statistics
of small pox as prepared by the resident Medical Officer of the Homerton
Hospital, in his report for the year 1877, the statement made several years
ago by Mr. Marson is confirmed.

The failures of vaccination to prevent fatal small pox is stated upon
the high authority of Dr. Munk and the late Mr. Marson, to be generally
due to the careless and imperfect manner in which the operation has been
performed.
Dr. McCann in his report made a few years ago to the committee of
management of the Stockwell Fever and Small Pox Hospitals, states that
not more than 20 per cent. of all cases admitted into the Hospital bore
cicatrices of vaccination undoubtedly genuine.
From the summary prepared by Dr. Collie, from the very elaborate
tables contained in the report of the Small Pox Hospital at Homerton, for
the year 1866-7, it appears that the unvaccinated died at the rate of 53
per cent., the badly vaccinated at the rate of 26 per cent., that the fairly
well vaccinated died at the rate of 2.3 per cent., and that but one death
occurred in any person under 16 years who showed two good cicatrices of
vaccination, and that after 16 only three such persons died. For further
particulars respecting the statistics of vaccination and small pox, see reports
for the quarters ending December 1858, December 1870, April 1870, and
June 1871.
* See Report for April, 1850, p, 5.