Inquiry into the probable cause of the continued prevalence and fatality of small-pox / By James Stark.

  • Stark, James, 1814-1883.
Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Inquiry into the probable cause of the continued prevalence and fatality of small-pox / By James Stark. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    one who has written on the subject, and from my own investiga¬ tions into the deaths of children from small-pox for several years past in Edinburgh, I am satisfied that the conclusion is quite legitimate. Indeed, one of the recorders of the Edinburgh burying- grounds has for some time past been making inquiries for me rela¬ tive to this very point, and he assures me that not one of the cases of death from small-pox which he has lately recorded has occurred in a vaccinated subject. Now, it is stated in Dr Watt’s “ Vital Statistics of Large Towns in Scotland,”* that in Edinburgh, from 1839 to 1841, no fewer than 82.683 out of every 100 deaths from small-pox were under five years of age ; in Glasgow, 85.729 per cent, were under five years from 1837 to 1841 ; in Perth, 87-755 per cent, were under five; and in Dundee, 85.258 per cent, under five years of age. In the records of the Canongate burying-grounds, where the ages as well as the diseases of the deceased are recorded, I find that from 1780 to 1836, 1068 cases of small-pox are recorded ; of which number only 36 were above five years of age. Or, in other words, 96*7 of every 100 were under five years of age, and only 3*3 above that age. It may also be stated that by far the greatest proportion of the cases under five years of age, I should say four-fifths, were under one year. The chief mortality, therefore, from small-pox in Scotland is in the unvaccinated ; in fact, it is by them the disease is kept up. The very same is true of England. In the Report of the Regis¬ trar-General for 1838, we find that of 8,706 cases of small-pox, in which the ages were ascertained, no fewer than 7*583 were under five years of age, or 85-9 per cent. In Ireland, again, we learn from the “ Report of the Commission¬ ers appointed to take the Census of Ireland for the year 1841,” that for the ten years ending 6th June 1841, no fewer than 58,006 deaths from small-pox occurred, of which 49,038 were under five years of age, or 84-5 per cent. From Dr Griffin’s excellent “ In¬ quiry into the Mortality occurring among the Poor of the City of Limerick,”t the same conclusion may be deduced. Of 393 cases of small-pox, 333 were under five years of age; 55 were between five and ten; and the remaining 5 were under fifteen years of age. Dr Griffin remarks that he could not ascertain whether any of these cases were vaccinated, but he did ascertain that 16 of the deaths arose from the children having been inoculated with small-pox. From all these statements, then, the only rational conclusion seems to be that the small-pox is kept up and its ravages extended by the neglect of vaccination—a neglect to an extent of which none seems to have had any idea. Being anxious to ascertain the actual state of our pauper popu¬ lation relative to vaccination and small-pox, I took the opportunity in December 1841, of making inquiries into the subject, when taking, up the names of families requiring relief in two districts of the Old Greyfriars parish in Edinburgh. The following table exhibits the actual state of 73 families whom I visited as to this point. * Transactions of the British Association, 1842. + Quarterly Journal of the Statistical Society of London, Jan. 1841, p.316.