A letter to the inhabitants of Ceylon on the advantages of vaccination / by J. Kinnis.

  • Kinnis, John, 1794?-1853.
Date:
1837
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter to the inhabitants of Ceylon on the advantages of vaccination / by J. Kinnis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    streets, in a very advanced stage of the disease. People were appointed to convey cases of this kind to hospital, where, although in many instances little could be done for them, in regard to the exhibition of medicine, they received that attention which their condition required.* During the six months, terminating on the 15th January 1820, in the maritime districts alone, .. 5,451 persons were ascertained to have had the disease, and 1,745 to have died, being nearly in the proportion of.... 1 to 3 or more exactly of 10 to 31 : And, during the five months terminating on the same day, in the Kandian provinces ,. 2,423 were admitted into hospitals established for their accommodation, and 1,200 died, being nearly in the proportion of 1 to 2 : Into the Kandy hospital alone 931 persons were admitted and , 525 of them died, being in the proportion of about.... ] 0 to 18. The total number of cases reported to government in the six months, during which chiefly the disease seems to have prevailed, was 7,874 ; and the total number of deaths 2,945, being in the proportion of 10 to 26. This awful punishment, inflicted alike on the guiltless child and its improvident parent^ was brought on the people OF Ceylon hy their, neglect of vaccination. IV. The panic inspired by a pestilence, so destructive and so widely spread, swept before it the obstacles to vaccination. It dispelled the apathy and subdued the prejudices of many a stubborn Mussulman, forcing him to seek security and safety from a measure, to which no other species of fear would have driven him.-}- Within six months after the first appearance of the disease, the extraordinary number of 55,710, and within the whole year 62,660 persons were vaccinated, of whom 48,411 inhabited the maritime districts, and 14,249 the Kandian provinces. The number vaccinated in these last, during the second six months of 1819, was 13,770, or consider- ably more- than one and a half of the whole that had previously passed through cow-pox, from its first introduction in September 1816. In the month of November alone, 18,670 persons or upon an average 622 a day, were vaccinated in the maritime districts, and 5,456 or 182 a day in the Kandian provinces. The good effects of these vigorous measures were strikingly manifested in the diminished numbers of admissions • and deaths, exhibited by returns received from all parts of the ■■ * Deputy Inspector General Marshall in Edin. Med. and Suigl. Journal forr 1823. vol. xix. p. 71. &c. f Dr. Farrell's Letter.
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