The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1838-05-15 00:00:00

THE SMALL PDX.

At present, when the eye of the public is turned of necessity
to a disease which is passing epidemically over the country, it
ought to be directed into the proper field of vision, in order that
apparent failures may not induce erroneous impressions—im-
pressions prejudicial to the health of the community at large.
When Jenner at first made known to the world that discovery
which immortalised his name, it was received with doubts and
discredit, but soon they passed off by a conviction of its utility.
Previous to 1796, (the beginning of the vaccine era,) the aver-
age number of deaths in London from small-pox amounted an-
nually to 2,000, and throughout England to 45,000. In the year
1796, the deaths from this disease in London alone were 3,549.
Every year after the introduction of vaccination, the number of
deaths from small-pox was fast diminishing, because fewer took
the disease, and in those who had been vaccinated it assumed a
milder form, seldom, if ever, proving fatal. Government at the
time considered this boon to society so great that they awarded
£30,000 to the discoverer of vaccination. Now, however, the
miltality from small-pox being on the increase, the faith of the
public in the antidote is greatly shaken. But should it be so?
If mothers have got careless regarding vaccination, and rather
than have the trouble of taking their children to those where it
is performed, or. be at the expense of having a surgeon to do it,
allow their children to run the Note small chance of taking the
natural disease, then it is the consequence of their folly that
there is a reintroduction into the country of epidemic small-pox
attended by an immense mortality. But, it is said, many who
have been vaccinated take the disease, and sometimes die of it.
This is seldom the case, and in some fatal cases how do we know
that vaccination was properly performed—was there no other
eruptive disease on the child at the time?—was the matter used
taken from the vaccine vesicle at the proper period ? Had it
not been kept too long, and consequently decomposed? But
even supposing that small-pox did in a few instances appear
after genuine vaccination, does not the same thing sometimes
occur after innoculation with various matter, nay, even after
natural small-pox taken in a natural way ? ThiS arises from a
peculiality in constitution ; and whilst it may' happen at the
time, the great bulk of those vaccinated escape altogether, or
should they, by a long contact with the variolus matter, take
the disease, it assumes so modified a character as almost to pass
into simple chicken-pox, a disease readily combated. It is a
matter of doubt whetber or not the vaccine matter may lose its
prophelactic power by the advance of years, i. e. whether re-vac-
cination is necessary. That it does is a popular idea, and has
as much in its favour as it has the Jennerian favour against it.
But since vaccination is so simple a process. and is so readily
effected, every one at the age of puberty, when great changes
take place in the animal economy, ought to get it re-performed.
If more needed to be said on the subject, it would only be ne-
cessary to recall to memory the frightful, defaced, and disfigured
victims of small-pox, an everyday spectacle some thirty years
ago, but, happily, known to the present generation only by
tradition. If, then, the national des:re be to retain its national
beauty, let every mother be eager fur the vaccination of her
child let every young lady reap the advantages of the rnneriy,
and hasten to 'get re-vaccinated, in order that ske may keep
what nature has so lay ishly bestowed upon her sex ; and let both
mothers and daughters use all their persuasive eloquence to
(is ercome the ill-founded prejudices of the peasantry, which, if
they do, we need never again tear the prevalence of that once
dreadful scourge, small-pox.— York Courant.