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those dying in hospital I have been unable to obtain any particulars ;
but of the 31 deaths in the parish, five were stated by the medical men
certifying to have been vaccinated in infancy, and thirteen to have been
unvaccinated, the remainder were not stated. Upon further inquiry
I ascertained that two of the non-stated cases were unvaccinated, and
that two were stated by the mothers to have been vaccinated. In the
other cases I could not succeed in obtaining the desired information, as
the persons having charge of the patients were themselves not aware
whether the operation had been performed or not. There is a considerable
amount of temptation for parents to make false statements as to vaccination,
as they feel, in case of a fatal event, that blame rests on them for
neglect. Many are also under a vague impression that, even after the
death of the child, they are liable to punishment under the Vaccination
Act. In answer to my inquiry, one woman even told me how many
places the child "took" in, and by whom it was vaccinated; yet, upon
pushing my questions, she acknowledged that the child had never been
vaccinated at all. In another case the answer was, "Oh, yes; it was
vaccinated in four places, but nothing broke out afterwards, so I did not
take it back to be looked at."
On this subject the Registrar-General remarks:—
The word "vaccinated" is ambiguous; for it is applied:—(1) popularly to the
operation of puncturing the skin and inserting vaccine lymph, without reference to its
effect; and (2) scientifically to vaccination that induces cow pox. Two words are
needed, and the word "vaccinized" might be used with advantage in the second case,
where cow pox is induced and distinct marks are left. Should the word vaccinized not
be used, a child must not be described in the medical certificate as "vaccinated" unless
it had distinct marks of cow pox before the appearance of the small pox eruption.
In one case only had revaccination been performed, and in this the
small pox eruption appeared twelve days afterwards; but I ascertained
from the medical man attending that the lymph used had been taken
from a case of revaccination, which undoubtedly has no protective value
whatever, although apparently perfect vesicles may (and in this case did)
form as a result.
The present outbreak of small pox (of which the history remains to be
written) may be said to have commenced, in London, about last March,
but no case was reported to us as having occurred in this parish until