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Untitled Article
tion , for this is the number which by the average mortality of natural smallpox would have died , if the constitutions of these forty-eight persons had been modified by previous vaccina
not - tion . Dr . Dewar , of Edinburgh , hearing that many vaccinated subjects had been affected with small-pox at Cupar in Fife , where the natural small-pox at the same time prevailed ,, he most laudably repaired to the spot to investigate the subject . He found that fiftyhad ht
four vaccinated subjects caug the small-pox . All these , except one , had the mitigated or five-day eruptive fever and livid . The fatal case was that of a child , who had a complication of other disorders , and having died on the fifth day , the small-pox , according to its ordinary course of fatality , could not of itself be the cause of death . All the rest were safe , while
of sixteen cases of the natural smallpox , at the same time and place , six died ; so that , if these fifty-three cases had not undergone the mitigating process of vaccination , nineteen or twenty would have perished . Between thirty and forty cases of the same kind have occurred at Carlisle , on the testimony of Dr . Barnes , a respectable
practitioner of that city . * Many proofs might be adduced from the oral testimony of private practitioners , which would overswell this article . The only other to be mentioned is from the Report of the Central Committee of Vaccination at Paris , made in December
last , in which the description of the disease occurring after vaccination corresponds exactly with the mitigated five-day cases which have occurred in Britain . They refuse the name of small-pox to it ; but as I know from
my own observation , as well as from the testimoay of others , that the mattar from it does by inoculation give the small-pox , we can hardly , perhaps with propriety , deny it that name ; but it should be distinguished by some strong discriminating epithet , such as is suggested above . " Now let all this be applied to the case of a community , in which the
* See also a clear and able exposition of this subject in the Medical and Surgical Journal of Edinburgh , for July , 1818 , by Mr . Dunning , of Plymouth .
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total eradication of small-pox is < jtdte hopeless . Let it be admitted that such occurrences as have been described do frequently occur : let it even be admitted , for argument ' s sake , that every vaccinated case whatever must of
necessity and unavoidably at some time or other in future life be affected with this mitigated species of small-pox * would it not even , under this great abatement , be one of the greatest boons that could be conferred on
humanity , as an instrument or remedy which would disarm small-pox of its danger ? The next greatest benefit to the total extirpation of small-pox would be the stripping it of its terrors by rendering it safe and harmless . " It may be further remarked , that the benefit derivable from the different
proportions of the persons vaccinated to the total popuiatipn , advances in a considerably higher progression than the simple arithmetical . It is evident that the smaller the relative number of
the vaccinated , the greater their chance of meeting with small-pox infection $ and that though the disease they may catch is of a mitigated nature , it would nevertheless be desirable to avoid it on
its own account , but still more on account of the prejudice it ereates . This , in the eye of general benevolence , constitutes an additional , though secondary motive , for extending the vaccine inoculation as widely as possible , even though the attainment of the maximum of total extirpation should be impracticable and hopeless .
" It is of the highest importance to society that this subject should be seen in its true light , and in all its bearings ; for the frequent occurrence of these cases of small-pox , however safe in themselves , have had a most pernicious
effect on the credulous and ignorant , by giving a check to the practice of vaccination . How many parents are there now , who from a weak distrust in the virtue of vaccination , have to lament the loss of a child from
smallpox , either casual or inoculated ? Many such are known to myself . It is pleasing , however , to observe , that though this unmerited discredit into which vaccination had fallen , swelled the number of deaths in London from
small-pox to 1 , 051 in 1817 , good sense is likely still to prevail $ for last year ( 1818 ) the deaths have fallen lower
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Sir Gilbert Blane on Vaccination . 287
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1820, page 287, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2488/page/31/
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