Vaccination. Documents illustrating the actual state of vaccination among 30,117 children of the poor in the Metropolis, presented at a general meeting of the directors and governors of the Infirmary / [by A.B. Granville].

  • Royal Metropolitan Infirmary for Sick Children (London, England)
Date:
1826]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vaccination. Documents illustrating the actual state of vaccination among 30,117 children of the poor in the Metropolis, presented at a general meeting of the directors and governors of the Infirmary / [by A.B. Granville]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    4/10 (page 2)
    priate columns, under the sh^erintendance of the respective Physicians and Surgeons; and a monthly report of it is made by them to the Directing Committee. The facts thus learned, extend, at this moment, to upwards of 30,000 children, under the age of thirteen* years, whose history, in regard to small-pox;and vaccination, has thus been narrowly inquired into. From those facts the following conclusions are derived. 1st. That the practice of vaccination is steadily gaining ground among the poorer classes of society. 2d. That the inoculation of small-pox is of rarer occurrence than heretofore. 3d. That in proportion as the former practice increases, and the latter decreases, so have the cases of natural small-pox diminished. 4th. That parents, in general, are much less indifferent, than hitherto, to the great advantage of securing their offspring by an early vaccination, from the ravages of a most loathsome disease. 5th. That small-pox after vaccination has been of very rare occurrence, and when it has occurred, it has been mild in its course, and harmless. 6th, and lastly. That although two cases of death referred to small-pox after vaccination by the parents, have been reported to your medical officers since the first foundation of the institution, positive proofs do not exist of the real nature of those cases, and they have therefore not been noticed in the table. The calculations, contained in the general table, have been made in two ways. The proportions are first given, as deduced from the actual numbers registered, in units and decimal fractions;—and, secondly, as deduced from what the numbers registered would give, if extended to a million, in decimal fractions only: the latter calculation being, like the first, founded on the actual numbers. In pursuing this second mode of calculating, (which is that now generally adopted at the Insurance Offices,) I had the satisfaction of being assisted by my friend Mr. Finlaison, the able Actuary of the National Debt Office, who is, moreover, a supporter of the Infirmary. Those who prefer the language which speaks to the eye, to that of numbers, will probably find the diagrammatic chart more useful. There, inspection alone will shew, that the red line denoting the progress of Vaccination rises higher in theIV. and V. period (1824-1825), because, at that time, small-pox, after having sensibly diminished during the preceding year, had, as may be seen by the blue line, again increased, and raged almost epidemically, so that more parents flew to the resource of cow-pox, in hopes of saving their children. This latter circumstance, caused a corresponding and a remarkable depression in the green line, intended to mark the diminution of prejudice against, or carelessness respecting cow-pox. With regard to the yellow line, which is meant to exhibit the extent to which the innoculation of small-pox has been carried, within the whole period embraced by the chart, it speaks for itself. This baneful practice, which more than any prejudice against vaccination, opposes itself to the full and glorious result of the Jennerian Discovery, by keeping up the fomes of contagion intended to be extinguished by the cow-pox, is, * By a typographical error twelve years is printed instead of thirteen at the head of the table.