The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-06-18 00:00:00

THE SMALL-PDX EPIDEMIC IN
LONDON.

The usual meeting of the Metropolitan Asylums
Board was held in London on Saturday; Dr. Brewer
in the chair. A letter was read from the Admiralty
offering to provide another ship with a tonnage of
3,000 in addition to the Atlas for the accommodation
of small-pox patients. The comparative return of the
number of small-pox natienL-s showed an increase of
122 cases remaining under treatment, the number in
all the hospitals being 1,682, including 631 convales-
cents in Darenth camp. Sir E. Hay Currie was glad
to be able to point out that the increase of in-patients
was only on paper and not an actual increase. It had
been caused by an accumulation of convalescents at
Darenth, who were waiting to be discharged.

A Parliamentary paper issued on Saturday contains
a "Memorandum of Dr. Buchanan, medical officer
of the Local Government Board, on the present pre-
valence of small-pox in London among vaccinated
and unvaccinated persons respectively. The memo-
randum, which is dated June 3, 1881, says that
of people living in London at all ages, there died
of small-pox during the past fifty-two weeks,
1,532; and .of these 325 are certified to have been
vaccinated, and 637 not to have been vaccinated;
while the facts about vaccination are not stated
in the ease of 570 of the deaths. The death-
rate from small-pox among people of all ages
was 90 per million of the vaccinated class, and 3,350
per million of the unvaccinated class. The death-rate
of persons under twenty years was—vaccinated, 61 per
million, and unvaccinated, 4,520 per million. The
death-rate of children under five years was—vaccinated,
40i per million, and unvaccinated 5,950 per million.
On these facts, Dr. Buchanan makes the following
observations :—" As no one suggests that the vaccinated
and unvaccinated classes live under conditions differing
from each other in their influence on small-pox, unless
it be this one condition of vaccination, it follows for a
first inference that the vaccinated are much less liable
to die of small-pox than the unvaccinated.
"The second lesson is, that vaccination is not an
absolute protection against small-pox.
"The third lesson is that the degree of protection,
both actual and relative, afforded by vaccination is
greatest to people under five years of age; less when
ages from birth to 22 years are examined; and still
less when people of all ages are taken into account.
Thus the distance of time from the operation appears to
be concerned with the degree of its protective powers.
Londoners can, by availing themselves of one average
vaccination, diminish the chances ,of their children
dying of small-pox in the proportion of 146 to 1 for the
first five years of their life, and the same vaccination
serves to lessen, in the proportion of 74 to 1, the chance
of their being killed by the disease before they reach
the age of twenty. After that age the vaccination in
infancy is further reduced in its protective influence,
for the difference in small-pox mortality between the
unvaccinated and the vaccinated class through the
whole period of life is as 1 to 37—a protection incom-
plete indeed, but obviously important for everybody
to possess."