Report on vaccination and its results, based on the evidence taken by the Commission during the years 1889-1897.

  • Great Britain. Royal Commission on Vaccination.
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on vaccination and its results, based on the evidence taken by the Commission during the years 1889-1897. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

    467/512 (page 459)
    INFLUENCE OE SURROUNDING CONDITIONS. 405' improved lodging-houses the disease might be all but ex- terminated. 230. In 1875, Dr. Farr constructed life tables based, upon the vital statistics of (1) all England, (2) Liverpool, and (3) healthy districts, in order to ascertain what effect healthy environment had upon zymotic diseases. His figures showed, that— For every Million born alive there would die, according to- the Life Tables1 — In healthy districts. In England. In Liverpool. By smallpox. By fevers By measles . By whooping-cough By scarlatina 2,359 28,146 6,912 10,234 21,403 6,521 38,107 12,865 15,161 30,021 8,141 76,563 26,973 34,021 38,302 Dr. Farr, commenting on these remarkable figures, states his opinion that healthy sanitary condition as to food,, drink, and cleanliness of person, house, and city, stands first in importance ; after it, but subordinately, come quarantine, vaccination, and other preventives, as means of subduing mortality ; for the mere exclusion of one out of many diseases appears to be taken advantage of by those other diseases, just as the extirpation of one weed makes way for other kinds of weeds in a foul garden. 231. That the difference observed between the figures for Liverpool and the healthy districts is not merely due to the denser population of the former affording greater opportunity for infection is, we think, shown by the fact that in industrial dwellings, where there is a considerable aggregation of persons upon area, but under superior sanitary supervision, there has been a marked immunity from smallpox. Dr. Southwood Smith long ago called attention to this fact