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risk of the vaccinated has a graduated scale of its own, and that
among vaccinated persons infected with Smallpox the danger of
the disease is chiefly determined by the badness and insufficiency
of their vaccination.
The establishment of this truth is the work of Mr. Marson, who
for a great number of years was resident Surgeon of the London
Smallpox Hospital, and who founds his conclusions on many
thousands of cases.
His conclusions are as follows:—
That the fatality of Smallpox, when it attacks the unvaccinated,
is 350 per thousand; that its fatality to such vaccinated persons as
it infects is, taking them indiscriminately, 70 per thousand. But,
distinguishing vaccinated persons into two classes, those (1) who
have been vaccinated in the best known manner, and those (2) who
have been badly vaccinated, the fatality of Smallpox, if it infects
the former, will be 5 per thousand; if it infects the latter, 150 per
thousand: that the risk of the one will be thirty times the risk of
the other. Such, then, is the almost perfect security which well
performed infantine vaccination confers against death by Smallpox.
The number of cases of Smallpox in the district was 168; of
these 92 were removed to the Hospitals at Stockwell, Deptford,
Homerton, and Fulham; 9 were removed to the Highgate Hospital,
and the expenses paid by your Board; 67 were treated at their
homes. Those treated at home were in every practicable instance
isolated, and, when necessary, nurses were provided by your order.
In a number of cases I ordered every article of bedclothing to be
destroyed, and in every such case fresh articles were immediately
given. 1 say immediately, because it has come to my knowledge
that complaints have been made of poor people being kept unprovided
with bedclothing sometime after their own had been
destroyed. In one case, where isolation was impossible, and where
a number of children of different families inhabited the same house,
I caused the healthy children to be vaccinated, and removed them
into the country.
Out of the 168 cases, 6 proved fatal in the district and 14 in the
Hospitals.