Half a century of small-pox and vaccination : being the Milroy lectures delivered before the Royal College of Physicians of London on March 13th, 18th and 20th, 1919 / by John C. McVail.

  • McVail, John C. (John Christie), 1849-1926.
Date:
[1919?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Half a century of small-pox and vaccination : being the Milroy lectures delivered before the Royal College of Physicians of London on March 13th, 18th and 20th, 1919 / by John C. McVail. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    1903-13 (the latest available data) were only 939. For Paris the figures are known up to 1916 inclusive, and in the four years 1913-16 the cases were 103 and the deaths five. In the Paris epidemic of 1900-1 it has already been noted that the fatality rate was the same as London’s, 16.8 per cent. In subsequent years it has been much less, the cases having been 4,773 and the deaths 399, or 8.4 per cent. In Marseilles there has been very considerable prevalence, and in 1906-7 the fatality rate appears to have been very high, but there have been few cases from 1908 to 1915. In Spain there has been much small-pox, but details are vitiated by small-pox and chicken-pox being classified together. Portugal also has had much small-pox. In Switzerland prevalence has diminished since 1905, though the fatality rate has been 13 per cent., the cases having been 345 and the deaths 45. In 1900-1 there were 567 cases and 67 deaths, or 11.8 per cent. In Italy the disease has been very prevalent and the fatality high. In the twenty-nine years 1888-1916 there were 320,161 cases and 81,289 deaths, or 25.3 per cent. In the last three years of this period, however (these being war years as it happens), prevalence was much less and the fatality rate low—2,126 cases and 57 deaths, or 2.6 per cent. Small-pox in Germany will be considered in the next lecture. In Austria up till 1900 there was heavy prevalence with fatality rates of 20 to 40 per cent. From 1901 to 1914 inclusive the disease was at a low ebb, with fatality rates much below the previous level, but in 1915 and 1916 there have been nearly 50,000 cases, though the deaths are not stated. Hungary, like Austria, had much small-pox, but there has been very regular diminution from 15,470 deaths in 1887 to 81 deaths in 1912, the last year for which figures were obtained. It is probable that the disease has had some prevalence during the war, though Budapest is the only town of which that can be said with certainty.