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The death-rate from all these diseases, excepting enteric fever,
was higher last year than the average for the past eight years. The
small-pox cases which occurred during the first half of the year were a
rekindling of the 1893-94 epidemic, and were almost entirely localised
to the districts north and south of the Barking Road. During 1896 the
Gloucester epidemic spread to several towns in the midlands, but no
case, so far as I could discover, was imported into West Ham from that
district; 55 out of 59 cases were isolated at the Hospital Ships, and
the promptitude with which the cases are removed by the Metropolitan
Asylums Board ambulances is, in my opinion, very largely responsible
for the steady decline in the epidemic.
Vaccination.—On September 16th, 1896, I reported to the
Council as follows:—
It is satisfactory to call attention to the publication of the Report
of the Royal Commission of Vaccination, and especially to the conclusions
formulated by the Commissioners after their exhaustive
enquiry, which I quote below—conclusions which more than justify
your Council, as the Urban Sanitary Authority, in using every
endeavour to ensure the efficient vaccination and re-vaccination of the
entire Borough.
"377. We have not disregarded the arguments adduced for the
purpose of showing that a belief in vaccination is unsupported
by a just view of the facts. We have endeavoured to give full
weight to them. Having done so, it has appeared to us
impossible to resist the conclusion that vaccination has a
protective effect in relation to small-pox.
"We think:—
"(1) That it diminishes the liability to be attacked by the disease.
"(2) That it modifies the character of the disease and renders it
(a) less fatal and (b) of a milder and less severe type.