69
Extract from the Report on Revaccination
by the Deputy Surgeon
General,
Presidency Division
of the
Army.
In the regimental hospitals 186 were revaccinated, the persons bearing marks
of previous genuine vaccination ; out of these 41 cases were pronounced successful,
that is the resulting vesicles were, 20 good, and 21 middling ; the remainder were
followed by a few with badly formed vesicles and the larger number were unsuc-
cessful. The percentage of success here is 22.04, excluding vesicles pronounced
bad. 61 cases showing marks of small-pox were vaccinated ; in these, 26 cases
were successfully operated on, that is 16 cases had good vesicles and 10 middling
vesicles, the rest of the operations were followed by 10 bad vesicles and 25 with
no success. The percentage of success here is so large as 42.62. Of 11 cases vac¬
cinated, which bore the distinctive inoculation mark on the front of the fore-arm,
2 were operated on with good vesicles resulting, 7 with middling results, and 2
were unsuccessful. The percentage here is 18.18.
In jails :—The results, generally, show that in a total of 448 cases of pre-
viously vaccinated prisoners, there were 119 successfully revaccinated ; 67 of these
had good vesicles, and 52 middling ; of the remainder, 51 had vesicles but they
were bad, 6 cases were unknown, and the remainder, 279, were unsucessful; the
percentage here then was 26.56.
Out of 554 cases which presented marks of previous small-pox, 147 were suc-
cessfully vaccinated, 69 with good vesicles, 78 with middling, giving a percentage
of 26.48 ; 141 had bad vesicles and 266 were unsuccessful.
There were 26 prisoners who had the distinctive marks of inoculation, 13 of
these were successfully vaccinated, 2 only with good vesicles, 11 with middling,
50 per cent.
The results of revaccination, in these two tables, very closely agree, 22 per
cent. in regiments and 26 in jails being successfully operated on. The results of
vaccination on persons who previously had small-pox differ, in regiments being
42.61 per cent. and in jails 26.48. The results on persons who had been inoculated
differ also, in regiments being only 18.18, while in jails it was so high as 50 per
cent. That revaccination is necessary has long been well-known, and the percen-
tages here shown, prove, as far as they go, that more attention than is yet given
to this subject, would not be thrown away. One of the cases of revac-
cination in the return submitted, in Her Majesty's 21st Regiment N. I., had been
three times vaccinated and revaccinated. successfully, yet such was the peculiarity
of constitution, that the child had small-pox soon after the last vaccination, though
in a mild form. In establishments, jails, regiments and all collections of people,
for any length of time, the work of revaccination might be carried on systematic-
ally ; and amongst the people as much as the vaccination department could effect.
On the results of vaccination of persons having marks of small-pox I cannot
place confidence. There is no doubt, that the law of small-pox being a disease ap-
pearing only once in life, is far more frequently broken than was before known,
and that very many exceptions occur to it ; but that so large a percentage of cases
as 42, would be obnoxions to the disease again, cannot be considered correct; it is
not unlikely that a variety of marks may be, and are mistaken for small-pox, and
that enquiries concerning them amongst natives, especially of the classes found in
regiments and jails, would, as a rule, elicit information not quite reliable ; the re-
sults however go to show that many adults have never been vaccinated, and that
often they have, probably, not been vaccinated in consequence of the existence of
these marks. In the inoculated, the marks cannot be trusted, unless accompanied
with marks of small-pox, and the percentage on these, as shown in jails, may
not be far from correct. Inoculation is however falling much into desuetude,
though doubtless still practised in out of the way places, as it continues to hold a
strong place in the minds of many natives.