Copy of the last report of the National Vaccine Establishment to the Secretary of State for the Home Department. Presented pursuant to an Address of the House of Commons, bearing date the 13th February 1828.

  • National Vaccine Establishment (Great Britain)
Date:
1828
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Copy of the last report of the National Vaccine Establishment to the Secretary of State for the Home Department. Presented pursuant to an Address of the House of Commons, bearing date the 13th February 1828. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    NATIONAL VACCINE ESTABLISHMENT. COPY OF THE LAST REPORT Of the National Vaccine Establishment to the Secretary of State for the Home Department. Presented pursuant to an Address of the House of Commons, bearing date the 13th February 1828. 11th February 1828, Percy-street. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE ROBERT PEEL, Secretary of State for the Home Department. SIR, WE have the honour to inform you, that the result of the last year’s experience is highly favourable to Vaccination, and that we hear most satisfactorily, not only of its protective influence, but of its wider diffusion. It is true, that cases are reported to us very often of the occurrence of Small Pox after Vaccination; but we have reason to believe that the number of those who fall into this safe, though sometimes severe disease, after Vaccination, is not greater than that of those who formerly died by Inoculation, whilst that practice prevailed. With regard to the diffusion of this Protection, whether we judge by the extent of the demand which has been made upon the Board for authentic Lymph in the course of the last year, or collect from accounts received of the practice of Vaccination in new Countries, we are satisfied that the Prejudices against it are less pertinacious than they were: And where it is not resorted to with that alacrity and thankfulness which such a Blessing might justly demand, the Failure is rather to be attributed to a propensity in human nature to disregard danger at a distance, and to wait till the evil be at the door, before measures are taken to prevent it, than to a distrust of its saving influence. In proof of its wider diffusion, we learn that it is now practised, not only throughout the Morea and the Countries inhabited by the Greeks, but that it has been admitted into Constantinople, and into the Palace of the Sultan, in spite of the prejudices which the Religion of the Mahomedans opposes to any measure intended to interfere with the destinies of life. So that the advantages which this Country derived from the East in the last century, by the acquisition of Inoculation from thence, it has now abundantly requited, by imparting to the same region the safer practice of Vaccination, by which the Small Pox, equal to their own Plague in the severity of its visitations, has been already disarmed of its terrors, and in the course of years may, possibly, be extinguished altogether. We have, &c. (signed) HENRY HALFORD, President of the Royal Coll, of Physicians. Thomas Turner, 1 Censors of the Royal College James Tatlersall, J of Physicians. ASTLEY PASTON COOPER, President of the Royal College of Surgeons. Anthony Carlisle, Vice President of the Royal College of Surgeons, Clem* Hue, M. D. Registrar. y V 27.