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different to those from a secondary vaccination. Your columns are not
the place in which to describe their distinctive characters. The nettle,
cow pox, was not sown ; the flower, safety, has not been plucked.
"As to insufficiency.—The insufficiency of vaccination, as it is
frequently performed, is shown by a solitary cicatrix, instead of a
minimum of four. In such cases the antidote has been too sparingly
used, it has not affected the system with sufficient intensity to alter or
destroy the susceptibility of the contagion. Mr. Marson tells us that,
from a careful observation of 6,000 cases of small pox after vaccination,
21¾ per cent. died who were said to have been vaccinated, but whose
arms showed no cicatrix, 7½ per cent. died with one cicatrix, 41\8 per cent.
with two cicatrices, 1¾ per cent. with three cicatrices, and only ¾ per
cent. of those with four or more cicatrices. Of the unvaccinated who are
attacked, we know that 35½ per cent. is the ordinary rate of mortality.
It is certain that both quality and quantity in the matter of vaccine
lymph are necessary to secure exemption from small pox.
" The knowledge that many persons have been imperfectly vaccinated,
and are, therefore, unprotected, and the fact that persons properly
vaccinated, even by Jenner himself, have in after life suffered from smallpox,
suggest the necessity of re-vaccination. Arguments in favour of it
derive force from the additional fact that when vaccination has been
properly performed, and followed in due course by re-vaccination, almost
absolute immunity is obtained. Mr. Marson's statement, in 1871, before
the Select Committee on the Vaccination Act (1867) cannot be too publicly
made known ' In the 35 years during which I have been at the
Small Pox Hospital, I have never had a nurse or a servant the whole
time who has taken small pox there. I re-vaccinate them when they
come there, and they never have small pox, although they are exposed
to infection every day.' This testimony has been fully corroborated
by Dr. Seaton.
" Practical Measures.1. Make re-vaccination compulsory at puberty.
It is between 15 and 25 years of age that the deaths from small pox
after vaccination are the the most numerous. The enforcement of the
rule suggested some years ago by Dr. Seaton —viz., ' The re-vaccination
of persons as they reach 15 years of age should be as systematically done
as is the vaccination of young infants'—would be the means in future
epidemics of saving the lives of thousands of persons not only of the
above period of life, but of all ages.1
" 2. Require forthwith all persons, irrespective of age, to be re-vaccinated,
whose maintenance, whether for a longer or shorter period, is