Forty-five years of registration statistics, proving vaccination to be both useless and dangerous. In two parts / By Alfred R. Wallace.

  • Wallace, Alfred Russel, 1823-1913.
Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Forty-five years of registration statistics, proving vaccination to be both useless and dangerous. In two parts / By Alfred R. Wallace. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

    18/52 (page 14)
    Small-pox in the Army and Navy. Here we have a crucial test of the efficacy or uselessness of vaccination. Our Soldiers and Sailors are vaccinated and re-vaccinated in accordance with the most strinrent official regulations. They are exceptionally strong and healthy men, in the prime of life, and if vaccination is of any use. Small-pox should be almost unknown among them, and no London Hospitals, 1870-72, (14,808 cases); in the Report of a Committee of the Managers of the Metropolitan Asylum District, July 1872, p. 5. London Hospitals, 1876-80, (15,172 cases); in a letter to The Times of November 8th, 1879, from W. F. Jebb, Clerk to the Meti-opolitan Asylum District. Homerton, (5,479 cases); from the Report of the Committee, 1877. Deptford, (3,185 cases); from the Report of the Medical Superin- tendent, 1881. Fulham, (1,752 cases); from the Report of tlie Medical Superintendent, 1881. Dublin, (2,404 cases); from the Annual Report of the Committee, 1880. Total cases after Vaccination, 48,451. The extracted figures and per-centages have been all cai'efuUy verified, and the averages have been obtained by dividing the total number of deaths multiplied by 100, by the total number of cases. I have thought it best to leave these notes unaltered. They are not affected by more recent experience, excepting in this Vi'ay:—That the gi'eat extension of our hospital accommodation involves a much larger number of mild cases being admitted. Objection has been taken to Jurin's figures. JtJRiN, it must be remembered, was trying to induce people to accept artificial Small-pox by inoculation, and he gives his figures to show the great fatality of Small-pox taken in the ordinary way by infection. He would therefore certainly not err in making it too mild. The total experience of the Metropolitan Asylums Board, up to the issue of the last report to the managers, is given in the Appendix.—Ed.