Letters to The Times on small-pox encampments : and a word on the Contagious Diseases Acts / by T. Atchison.

  • Atchison, Thomas, 1823-1874.
Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letters to The Times on small-pox encampments : and a word on the Contagious Diseases Acts / by T. Atchison. 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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    Three months have passed since the first warning was given to the public in these pages ; and six months have elapsed since the invasion of this epi- demic. Four thousand lives have already been sacrificed; and, by the latest returns, 47,000 per- sons, chiefly of the poor and helpless class, have been attacked; cruelly injured in health; and most, if not all, disfigured for life. And the ex- pense to the ratepayers may be calculated as ex- ceeding a million sterling. It is estimated that there are at the present moment 100,000 persons abroad in London unpro- tected by vaccination, and many thousands in the provinces. There are also to be brought into the calculation 2000 births in the metropolis every week, furnishing pabulum for several months' inva- sion of the disease. One-tenth of the population is still supposed to be unvaccinated, and, therefore, susceptible of taking, transmitting, and intensify- ing this detestable poison. And yet nothing is 'lone. We will go to figures. A Parliamentary