The Sun.
London, England, 1839-09-27 00:00:00

VkCCINATION.

The Provincial Medical and Surgical Associa-
tion held at Liverpool, July 25, 1839, has pub-
lished a report of the section appointed to inquire
into the present state of vaccination, and ordered
it to be printed for general circulation. The facts
which it contains, and the judicious advice it
offers for the prevention of small-pox, certainly de-
serve to be generally known and attended to, and
we therefore earnestly recommend it to public notice.
One of the facts is, that notwithstanding the very
common practice of vaccination, there are still vast
numbers carried off annually by small-pox. This
is attributed in part to defective vaccination, to in-
oculation, which is stiil practiced extensively in
several districts, and to the negligence of the lower
classes in not having their children vaccinated till
they are three or four years of age. From the re-
' port of the Registrar of births, deaths, and mar-
riages, it appears that in the half year ending on
the 31st of December, 1837, 141,607 deaths were
registered in England and Wales, and of these
5,811 were occasioned by small pox. Great as
this number is, however, it is small compared
with the number of deaths from the same cause
previous to the discovery of Dr. Jenner. In Great
Britain and Ireland, between forty and fifty thou-
sand were supposed to perish annually from small-
pox, and if the vast increase of the populatton is
taken into account, probably eighty thousand or more
would now fall a prey to it were it not controlled by
the agency of this life-preserving power. 1n1837 the
disease was epidemic, particularly in Liverpool,
Bath, and Exeter. Of one thousand and fifty-six
deaths registered in Bath, Liverpool, Exeter, parts
of Shropshire, Worcestershire, and the Metropolis,
eighty-seven occurred under the
eight hundred and
age of four years ; ninety-nine between five and
nine ; fifteen between ten and fourteen ; eighteen
between fifteen and nineteen ; twenty-nine between
twenty and twenty-nine ; five between thirty and
thirty-nine; two between forty and forty-nine ; one
between fifty and fifty-nine. This specification, it
is added, may be considered as an approximation
to the ages of the five thousand eight hundred and
eleven ; and it is inferred that the majority of this
number had never been vaccinated, as so large
a proportion of deaths occurred among the very
young; and it is known that the poorer
classes, if they do not neglect vaccination al-
together, often defer it for years. " Our returns,"
says the Report of the Association, " fully verify this
view of the question, as the number of deaths
by small-pox after vaccination recorded by all our
correspondents, exclusive of those from London, is
very small indeed. One statement with regard to
the disease at Cheltenham, independent of several
others, would go far to prove that when due precau-
tion is taken, the great discovery of Dr. Jenner is
completely effective in extirpating the disease."
The report after adverting to the Isle of Wight,
as an illustration of the truth, adds, " perhaps a
better may be drawn from the experience of several
parishes in the vicinity of Cheltenham. Small-
pox visits the latter town, with more or less severity
annually ; but from these parishes it has been ex-
cluded for many years. All the children are care-
fully vaccinated, and small-pox has been most
efficiently controlled."

A general belief prevails that this disease is
peculiar to man, and that whenever it has appeared
even in the cow, it has been of so trivial a kind as
not to deserve the name, while it has been proved
bV unquestionable evidence that cattle and other
animals have for centuries been known to be af-
fected with small-pox or variola. Doctor Layard,
of England, Vicq d'Azyr, a French writer, and
several Italian doctors, have described this
disease which at various periods was of this
most malignant character, and destroyed the Cattle,
almost as extensively as small-pox did the human
race. It is not known how often it may have raged
in England, but it is certain that it was introduced
into this country in 1745, and again in 1770, and
appeared among the horned tattle, with more or
less violence, so late as 178,i.). At this time Dr.
Jenner was carrying an 'als investigations ; and it
was in this very year ',hat Dr. Layard published
his second paper in Ode Transactions of the Royal
Society, in which, among other things he mentions
that inoculation from cow to cow was successfully
practised to mi.cigate the severity of the disease.
This chain of evidence, very briefly and imperfectly
stated, leads., however, to the conclusion that it was
the remains of this violent epizootic that Dr. Jenner
found in Gloucestershire, and which being occa-
sionally transferred to the milkers, secured them from
subsequent small-pox. This is the disease adverted
to in the speech of George 111. from the throne in
1770, and which gave rise to the sarcastic remark of
Junius. In his letter to the Duke of Grafton he
says, " While the whole kingdrAn was agitated
with anxious expectation upon sne great point, you
meanly evaded the question, and instead of the ex-
plicit firmness and decis:on of a king, gave us
nothing but the misery of a ruined grazier, and
the whining piety of .st methodist." He adds in a
note, " There was something wonderfully pathetic
in the mention of the horned cattle."
After adduc.tng a number of interesting cases to
prove that the disease in the human race and the
brute creation is the same, the Report thus con-
tinues :

" Out of the materials collected in the preceding
pages, and from other sources, we deduce the follow-
ing aphorisms

_ .
" First, then, it has been proved that cattle, in
many ages and different countries, have been afflicted
with small-pox.

" Secondly, that this disease among the inferior
animals, has simultaneously existed with the small-
pox ir. man, and pursued its victims through every
quarter of the globe; and that it exists ar, this time
in Asia in a fatal and pestilential form.
Thirdly, that it appeared among the cattle in
England in the year 1745, and agr.in in 1770, and
continued its ravages up to tha year 1780 ; and
that the local remains of epizootic occasion-
ally still show themselves with considerable se-
verity.

" Fourthly, that the. 'casual transmission of this
disease to the milkers, in the dairies of Gloucester-
shire, and their sui-Aequent immunity from human
small-pox, first 1,4411 Dr. Jenner to the investigation
of this singulal,: affection, and ultimately to esta-
blish it as a substitute for the more pestilential and
fatal form ai the disease.
" Fiflitly, that when the disease appears among
the inferior animals in a malignant form, it pro-
ducris, by inoculation, a disease of similar seve-
TIV Yin man.

" Sixthly, that as man has received this affec-
tion from the cow, so likewise has the cow received
it from man.

" Seventhly, that the direct inoculation of the
cow with human small-pox has produced a mild
and mitigated disease ; and that such disease, re-
produced by inoculation on man, accords entirely in
its character, in its progress, and in its protecting
influence, with the variolce vaccince, as described
by Dr. Jenner, thus irresistibly proving his funda-
mental proposition, that cow-pox and small-pox are
not bona fide dissimilar, but identical, and that the
rvaceinet disease is not the preventive of small-pox,
'but the small-pox itself—the virulent and conta-
lOus disease being a malignant variety.'
Thi

- ,le Cheltenham Free Press in deep indignation
at the funearalhoefra suicide, says, " They buried her like a
dog,s twinthr)t/,i/ D clothes on."
ing wali
occasion DATA.—A deep and solemn feel-
Church, in thised. among the congregation at St. Peter's
Circumstance of city,
on Sunday evening, by the awful
.0 tne Jones, a female about fifty years old,
who was sitting i 1.:
during the service, aondorth gallery, having dropped down
expired. The de-
ceased, who was of a immediatelyquietdisposition, and bore an excel-
lent character, had been
that
delicate state of
health,. but observed on that day a aTt she felt herself better
than she had done for some tine t
loccurrence was not
.the conclusion of
generally known to the congregationhe'
the service, when this striking admootnfliitaion of the uncer-
tainty Lai earthly posses.
of human life, and the vanitym
sions and enjoyments, appeared to
oi.wners
sion upon the', minds.—Hereford Journal. seri"s imPre''
THE FACTORY CHILDREN._The m itihi
e.
and occupiers had a very numerous meeting of
at the Sun Inn, yesterday night week ( Wednesdtaybigdi
take into consideration a proposal of M. Saunders,
Superintendent of Factories, that a common school should
be built in Goodmansend, or some other convenient part of
the town, to which the children employed at mills should
be sent, and that the erection of the school should be de.
frayed, and the salaries of the masters paid proportionally
by the mill owners. An extremely warm discussion took
place, as to the religious education that should be given to
the children—some were for having no creeds or cate-
chismstaught, but the Bible read without note or comment ;
others were for having Church of England principles incul-
cated; and more that the child should be educated accord-
in& to the religious persuasion of its parents. Some reso-
lutions were passed, but, we believe, that although a com-
mon school would be much to the benefit of both masters
and children, yet obstacles of a religious nature will render
the plan impracticable.—York Courant.