Vaccination : a remonstrance respecting the Vaccination Bill of 1866, addressed to the Rt. Hon. Henry A. Bruce, M.P., Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education / by George S. Gibbs.

  • Gibbs, George S.
Date:
[1866]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vaccination : a remonstrance respecting the Vaccination Bill of 1866, addressed to the Rt. Hon. Henry A. Bruce, M.P., Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education / by George S. Gibbs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    London, August 7, 1861. Sir,—I fear I did not make my statement clear about tlie time necessary for vaccination to exert its protective influence. I will try again. Small-pox appears generally, if not invariably, in tbe unvaccinated on the 14th day after being taken. On the 12th day illness commences, which continues for 48 hours, and then the eruption begins to appear. Now vaccination, to be protective, must have got on to the stage of areola before illness from small- pox commences, i.e., the areola should be well formed. The areola will be well formed when the vaccination runs its regular course, on the 10th or 11th day, but occasionally the course of vaccination is retarded, from illness or peculiarity of constitu- tion. But it is necessary in these matters to be very particular in the use of words. Vaccination may be fairly said to be “ successful,” so far as it goes, when the operation has taken effect, but it also wants time in start of small-pox to be 'protective. I hope I have now made the subject clear to you. The Registrars of deaths take the information from anybody, and the public generally cannot fairly be expected to be particular in these matters. I always have sent the particulars about vaccination in persons who die at this hospital to the Registrar, and you will find instructions on the subject given in one of the early Reports of the Registrar-General. It was suggested at that time that, unless vaccination had been performed a month before the occurrence of small-pox, that persons dying of small-pox should not be considered to have been vaccinated. I think you will find instructions to this effect. The statistics you gave me the other day from Dr. Letheby’s paper, taking the whole of the eases, you will see correspond with my unprotected cases, viz., 35 per cent, of deaths. This led me to think sufficient care had not been taken in furnishing the particulars, because the mortality in this Hospital, for some years past, taking all cases vaccinated and unvaccinated has only been 12 and 13 per cent—last year 14—three or four previous years 12 and 13. I am, &c., J. F. MARSON. 8th mo. 14, 1861. Sir,—I take the earliest opportunity of thanking you for your letter of the 7th inst., and for your kind attempt to elucidate a very difficult subject. LET rightly understand your expressions, the case stands thus :— Vaccination may, according to law, be pronounced “ successful,” so far as it goes, on the 8th day after the performance of the operation : but cannot be deemed protective until after the lapse of a fortnight without the appearance of small-pox. From this it appears that the much vaunted law, resistance to which draws on the opponents denunciations of lunacy and wicked desire to “ sacrifice their children to a sordid and brutal prejudice,” does not provide what alone it is supposed to ensure, namely,