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ment officials is obligatory, it is found that 39 per
cent. of those who are vaccinated at 20 and upwards,
exhibit such a condition of the vaccine vesicle as to
prove beyond all doubt that they were susceptible
of the disease if exposed to the contagion of smallpox.
It would seem therefore that the vaccination
of infancy is protective during the growth of the
body, and that a second vaccination is necessary
when the structures have almost reached their full
development; and then if properly and successfully
performed, it needs no repetition to ensure its continued
prophylactic power.
The general mortality of the epidemic, which is
still among us, is unusually large; for it has
amounted to 19 per cent. of the admissions into the
Small-pox Hospital at Upper Holloway; and in the
three hospitals of the Metropolitan Asylum District
it has ranged from 18.2 per cent., at Stockwcll, to
19.8 at Homerton—the average for the whole of the
cases treated in the hospitals being 19.1 per cent.
In the City of London Small-pox Hospital, in Newstreet,
it has been only 8.9 per cent; and in the
whole of the City, as far as I have been able to estimate
the mortality of the disease, it has been at the
rate of 15.1 per cent. of those attacked. Taking all
the available returns for London, I find that the
mortality among the 12,725 cases on record during