An essay on vaccination : its actual value and attendant dangers : containing also A succinct history of vaccination from the year 1796 to the year 1866, and remarks on syphilitic inoculation.

  • Watson, James Henry.
Date:
1869
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An essay on vaccination : its actual value and attendant dangers : containing also A succinct history of vaccination from the year 1796 to the year 1866, and remarks on syphilitic inoculation. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    3G Recapitulates these facts, and shows that the mortality of Ireland is nearly three times that of England, twice that of London, and ten or fifteen times greater than that of many continental countries. Ireland alone, amongst European countries, is devoid of a registration of births, deaths, and marriages. This boon, long promised and often deferred, may confidently be expected next session from the hands of Lord Naas, and under the auspices of the Earl of Carlisle. It is this which Dr. Moore wishes to see the base of operation for vaccination. His paper is well arranged, and stored with facts; his scheme good, so far as it goes. At present Ireland suffers more profoundly than any other European country from this horrible and disgraceful scourge; and it is but once in ten years that she can examine her wounds, and judge of their extent. A quotation from a letter by W. E. C. Nourse, Esq., F.E.C.S., will not here be inappropriate. He says, “have the virus taken frequently from its natural source.” Vaccination from the cow would be a most important means both of restoring confidence in the process, and of insuring its efficacy and safety. Our present supply is taken from exactly the wrong source—the towns. Whether with Dr. Gore, we obtain vaccine virus from the cow, or whether by some organi- sation (I care very little what) we can ensure a constant supply of good recent lymph, taken from healthy children living in the pure air of the country, one thing is certain, that the country, not the town, is the proper source from which a supply of vaccine should be offered to the public. N.B. I have never read “ an account” of the origin of cotv-pox, for which, some years ago, the Imperial Academy of Medicine of Paris appointed a commission. I will close this part of my subject by copying a letter to the editor of the Times, by N. B. Ward, Esq.:— “ Sir—During the last few weeks the question of small-pox and the pi’otective powers of vaccination has produced much excitement in the metropolis and elsewhere. “ Having been a vaccinator of the National Vaccine Establishment for forty years, and having during that period vaccinated above 43,000 persons, I feel justified in expressing my entire conviction that vaccination properly performed is as effective a preventive of small- pox as small-pox itself is. Two points of inquiry have always engaged my attention—the one as to the occurrence of small-pox after vaccination; and the other as to the number of persons re-vaccinated. The information given me can, of course, only bo considered as approximative to the truth, but I believe that less than a hundred cases of secondary small-pox (none of them fatal) have taken place, and that not more than 3,000 out of the 43,000 have been re-vaccinated, proving to my mind most satisfactorily the delu-