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to mention that 463 cases were sent into the Infirmary by the Medical
Officers, and therefore are included in both columns.
The next table contains the return by the Vaccination Officer,
Mr. W. M. S. Sherman, for the quarter. An inspection of the numbers
will show the efficient performance of his duty by that officer.
No death from small-pox has been registered in the district, and
only two cases of the disease have come to our knowledge. It is however
well to call attention to the great increase in the number of cases
now in the various Metropolitan asylums' hospitals and ships. During
the past three weeks, the new admissions have been respectively 21, 65
and 92; and the last week's record gave, as the total number of cases in
those institutions, and in the Highgate Hospital, 278. I regret to notice
the increased opposition to vaccination which has lately been experienced,
so incontestable are the proofs of its efficiency, and so little
evidence of mischief from it has been adduced, that I sincerely hope
every means will be taken to enforce the Act of Parliament in its
present condition, so that this dire scourge may be successfully combated.
The vigilant care of our vaccination officer is the probable
explanation of our immunity from the disease.
Vaccination, whilst protecting during the earlier years of life,
requires repeating to afford a life immunity from small-pox. Mr.
Marson, during an experience of thirty-five years as Medical Officer
of a Small-pox Hospital, never knew a nurse to contract the disease.
All nurses were re-vaccinated.
During 1871, no persons were attending upon the sick in a
Metropolitan Small-pox Hospital; all these, with two exceptions,
were re-vaccinated, and all but these two escaped small-pox. Such
experiences could be multiplied if requisite, proving conclusively the
necessity for re-vaccination to stamp out small-pox.
A few words respecting the Cholera investigations in the East
may be interesting. In his final report to the Foreign Office,
Dr. Hunter devotes a great deal of labour in his endeavour to prove
his previously expressed opinion as regards the " non-contagious "
theory of cholera. His facts and figures however do not appear to
tend in the direction he would wish, and I think a reference to the
course of the disease last year in Egypt points out that cholera
spread directly by those routes most chiefly frequented by man. The
careful reports which Dr. Koch has forwarded to his Government
are most valuable. Divesting his last statement of its technicalities,
he infers that the germ or bacillus, which he first discovered in Egypt,