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
Catalogue details

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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    is three mouths old. It had been better if a longer time had been specified, say from four to six months, and this for the reason main- tained herein. It must also be admitted that the greatest care should be taken, not only, as has been before observed, in selecting virus, but also in selecting and appointing public vaccinators, and perhaps also it may be advisable to appoint a duly qualified gentleman as inspector over all. The writer is very anxious to glean all the information possible before the book is printed, which accounts for the length of the Appendix, in which, it will be seen, are several extracts from various journals up to the present time. Many of the objections to vaccina- tion will be there seen, some of which may be well founded, whilst others are frivolous. In one case a father told a magistrate that he objected to vaccination on principle. The ill effects of it had been made manifest to his own family, and he had declined to have his child vaccinated because he believed it would not be beneficial. Another parent said she was desirous not to have her child vacci- nated, a former child, a girl, who was perfectly healthy before being vaccinated, having immediately afterwards become covered with eruptions over the whole body, and for fifteen weeks she had to carry it to and fro from Guy’s Hospital, when it died. She also objected to the child being vaccinated at the present time because it was suffering from a scalded arm. In a third case the mother said she was a widow with six children, and on receiving the usual notice went to the parish medical officer, who told her that the operation could only he performed on Monday, and that being a day when she always had to leave home for work, she had been unable to take the child. I will not pi'esume to say that I have herein exhausted the subject, but, as I have remarked, I have endeavoured to collect all the infor- mation I could (thus far) to show both sides of the question. It will also he seen that I have an additional motive in publishing. Any further observations and statistics I mnst leave to others of greater ability. Should what I have collected and said prove of any utility towards elucidating this apparently semi-mysterious affair, I shall feel that my task has not been altogether “ labour in vain. THE END.