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xxix.
INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
Persons suffering from fever, who are in a position to bear the
expenses of their support, should apply at the London Fever Hospital,
Liverpool Koad, Islington, where they can be accommodated on
favourable terms. A carriage for the conveyance of fever patients
is kept at the Hospital, and is sent at once for cases requiring admission,
the only payment asked being for horse hire.
For the accommodation of any inhabitants who may have to
vacate their rooms during the progress of fumigation and cleansing
after infectious disease, the Vestry have provided and furnished
suitable rooms at Nos. 35 and 37, Millbank Street. The use of these
rooms will be granted free of charge on application to the Inspectors.
PREVENTION OF SMALL POX.
The extreme importance of primary vaccination in infancy, and of
re-vaccination at the age of puberty has been repeatedly testified on
the highest possible authority, whenever the metropolis has been
visited by epidemics of small-pox. The information gathered by the
Metropolitan Asylums Board also affords such conclusive evidence
of the protective powers of vaccination and re-vaccination, that an
extract from the observations made by that Board during the
epidemic of 1876-9 may be quoted with advantage to the residents
in the parish. It was found—
"That the per-centage of mortality upon the whole of the
admissions to the hospitals under the care of the Managers,
from the outbreak in 1876 until October 1879, was 17.6, and
was at the rate of 8.8 per cent, of the vaccinated, and of no less
than 44.4 per cent, of the unvaccinated.
" That no case of small pox came within the cognisance of
either of the Medical Superintendents of any person who had
been efficiently vaccinated and successfully re-vaccinated.
"That the nurses and servants employed from time to
time at the various hospitals under the care of the Managers
during the epidemic enjoyed almost absolute immunity from
infection, and that the few (about half-a-dozen amongst nearly
a thousand) who contracted the disease escaped re-vaccination
before entering the wards."
This powerful testimony is endorsed by the report of the
Medical Superintendent of one of the London Small Pox Hospitals.
Referring first to the cases in which the disease was of a malignant
type, he showed that in 1881, 113 patients were admitted, of whom
105 died. The majority of these had never been vaccinated, and
the remainder had been badly done, and bore very doubtful traces
of the marks. Next he showed that the severity of the attack was
generally in proportion to the imperfection of the vaccination—that
among persons with good marks the attack was slight, where the
marks were doubtful the cases were serious, and where no marks
existed, the disease in many cases assumed a malignant form. The ex-