Vaccination considered in relation to the public health : with inquiries and suggestions thereon. A letter addressed to the Right Honourable the Lord Viscount Morpeth, First Commissioner of Her Majesty's Woods & Forests. / By John Marshall.

  • Marshall, John, 1818-1891.
Date:
MDCCCXLVII
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vaccination considered in relation to the public health : with inquiries and suggestions thereon. A letter addressed to the Right Honourable the Lord Viscount Morpeth, First Commissioner of Her Majesty's Woods & Forests. / By John Marshall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    to the risk of misery and death; and but too frequently the mischief sooner or later creeps in. In the state of Denmark, this really happened to a fearful extent. Compulsory vaccination had for a time banished small¬ pox from the community; but the carelessness engendered by its absence, and the consequent neglect of vaccination, aided by unlucky chances, led to the reestablishment of that disease in a very active and virulent epidemic form. Local examples of the same kind, but on a smaller scale, can be quoted by every one who has had experience in this subject. The prevalence of small-pox in any town or district is sure to create a demand for vaccination ; but the epidemic having sub¬ sided, a state of apathy ensues, vaccination is again unheeded, the people are once more in a relatively unprotected condition, and in time another epidemic reveals and punishes their neglect. The same series of fluctuations occur again and again; but the public mind soon throws off a feeling of apprehension, and gains no lasting wisdom from a temporary alarm. It has been declared by one authority, that “ nothing but the terror of small-pox can maintain the habit of vaccination; and that if the former were altogether to cease for a time, the latter would soon fall into disuse.” (C.) Vaccination has not, under existing arrangements, a promise of being a permanent habit among the whole people. —The inquiries instituted by the poor-law authorities into the causes of any marked relaxation in the practice of vaccination, in particular districts, tend greatly to give it a more steady and uniform character. But the recommendations which they issue are operative only for a time, and under the influence of ever- recurring or existing causes of indolence and relaxed effort, as they have already failed in giving completeness and constancy to the practice of vaccination, so they cannot be expected to bestow upon it that permanence which is so much to be desired. The imperfect and inconstant character of vaccination, at present, in comparison with what it is desirable to accomplish, sufficiently accounts for the serious ills still inflicted upon us by small-pox. Nor can it be a matter of surprise to discover, that