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43
how necessary it is to adopt some general system of
inspection. For we may conclude that as 73
children have been removed with their families
into other parishes, so 73 other children of
whose birth we have no registration, have been
removed into this. It is only by a systematic supervision
of the whole country, that we can expect to
extirpate small-pox by means of vaccination. It is
too much to expect that under the present circumstances
any of the populations of the London parishes
will be so completely vaccinated as to prevent future
epidemics of small-pox. Of all diseases this is the
most contagious and the most certain to attack the
unprotected. Hence the importance of removing
those who are attacked, from the families and
neighbourhoods in which they reside, to some
isolated spot. Although there is a small-pox
Hospital in London, it has been found during an
epidemic that it is quite incapable of holding all who
seek admittance. Either each parish should have a
place where they may send their small-pox cases, or
the parishes of London should combine and make
the Small-pox Hospital sufficiently large to meet all
demands. This subject was felt to be so important,
by the medical officers of health, that on the 25th
of April, 1863, they issued a circular to all the
Vestries of the Metropolis, urging upon them to
provide hospital accommodation, for the purpose of
permitting an immediate separation of the diseased
from the healthy.