The vaccination question : a letter addressed by permission to the Right Hon. H.H. Asquith ... / by Arthur Wollaston Hutton.

Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The vaccination question : a letter addressed by permission to the Right Hon. H.H. Asquith ... / by Arthur Wollaston Hutton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    It appears, then, that in only three instances out of twenty-two do we find that the tables correspond; or, more correctly, only in three out of a total of forty-one places that come into the lists. Dewsbury, Oldham, and Halifax are these three; and I have had their names printed in italics for the sake of clearness. The advocate of vaccina- tion is undoubtedly at liberty to point to these three, and to urge that their aggregate of 330 deaths from small-pox since 1887 is the penalty they have had to pay for their temerity in neglecting vaccination during six years, up to an average of 41*3 per cent on the number of children born. But what, then, are we to say of Sheffield, with its 711 deaths in spite of a very low average of vaccination default; and what of Birmingham, Bristol, Warrington, Manchester, and the other towns, which have also suffered considerably in spite of being vaccinated better than the country as a whole? Or again, turning to the other table, what are we to say of Keighley, Gloucester, Luton, Eastbourne, Northampton, and a dozen others, which small-pox has either not touched at all, or not appreciably, in spite of their great and growing neglect? But it is useless to pursue the subject. The figures, which, so far as I know, have never before been presented in a way which makes their significance unmistakable, tell their own tale; and only those who will not be learned nor under- stand, but walk on still in darkness, can be blind to it. If these statistics prove anything, they show that neglect of vaccination has involved no special disaster, and that insistence on it has provided no special security. On the whole the best vaccinated populations have suffered most. Before this part of the subject is quitted, a word should be said as to Leicester, the town which has played the most important part in this vaccination controversy. For more than fifteen years Leicester has openly rebelled against the Vaccination Laws, and a very small percentage of the