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relative proportion of vaccinations to births, and the actual number of
vaccinations had gone on falling from year to year. Thus in 1861 the
proportion of vaccinations to births, was only 40 per cent., and the gross
number was only 2246. Setting aside the more effective means of
extending vaccination, which the Legislation might provide, and looking
only to the best application of the resources actually disposable, I represented
to the Board of Guardians two measures which appeared to me
most urgently required. The first was the increase of the number of
Public Vaccinators. This suggestion has been carried into effect by the
appointment of two additional Poor Law Medical Officers, namely
Dr. Leonard and Dr. Wallace. The assignment of districts to these
gentlemen has involved a re-arrangement of the parish, which has brought
about the very great convenience of identity between the Poor-Law
Medical Officers' districts, and the sub-districts of the Registrar General.
This will admit of more accurate comparison between the Sickness and
Mortality returns. This alteration did not come into operation until
Lady-day of the present year, so that Table III. refers only to the four
districts into which the parish had been heretofore divided.
The other practical measure which I submitted to the consideration
of the Guardians, was the provision in the New Workhouse, in process
of erection, of a detached Small Pox Hospital. It had been found
that the Small Pox Hospital at Highgate was liable in times of epidemic
spread of this disease to be so besieged, that patients brought from a
distance were turned away, to the imminent danger of life. The Parish
therefore could not depend upon extraneous refuge in the times of greatest
pressure. And the early removal of Small Pox patients from the
crowded dwellings of the poor is a paramount necessity, in order to
prevent the rapid spread of the disease.
A similar provision is made in the case of Fever patients. The
same arguments upon which the erection of a Parish Fever Hospital is
justified, apply with equal, or even greater force, in the case of Small Pox.
During the year ending Lady-day, 1864, the total Vaccinations
registered by the six Official Vaccinators, numbered 6,444. Thus, for
the first time, the registered vaccinations exceeded the registered births.