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23
fact," say Dr. Monk, and Mr. Marson, in their
report of the Small-pox and Vaccination Hospital for
1871, has occurred within our experience at the
hospital during the past year to shake our confidence
in vaccination, when properly performed, or to detract
in any degree from that high estimate of its value,
which many years experience in the wards of the
hospital, and a close study of small-pox have led us to
form. But vaccination is an operation of considerable
delicacy, and requires much care in order to
secure the advantageous results it is capable of imparting.
The failures of vaccination to prevent fatal
small-pox, which have occurred, are almost all of them
due to the careless and imperfect manner in which
it has been practised; "and they go on to remark
that, "in the present state of the population, re-vaccination
is of scarcely less importance to the adult
than is primary vaccination to the infant. A very
large number of the adult population of this country
are without adequate protection from vaccination,
and are liable to take small-pox in its gravest and
most deadly form. All persons who have not already
had small-pox and have been, or are likely to be
exposed to the infection of that disease, and all who
have not several (at least four) good marks, testifying
to the character and efficiency of the primary vaccination,
ought to be re-vaccinated. Re-vaccination
has proved itself to be a most important and efficient