Page:Lives of British Physicians.djvu/295

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JENNER. 273 vaccination is enforced by the government, than in our own. The Council of Health, of Paris, in their annual report for 1828, declare, that the deaths from small-pox continue gradually to di- minish in that city ; and express a belief, that the authorities are more active than ever in propa- gating vaccination, and that the prejudices of the public are daily yielding to the conviction forced upon it by repeated evidence of efficacy. We shall conclude with the important statement conveyed in the last " Report of the National Vac- cine Establishment" to the Secretary of State for the Home Department. March 2d, 1829. The number of persons who have died of small-pox in the course of the last year, within the bills of mor- tality, amounts to 598 ; and we have no reason to think that this distemper has abated any thing of its virulence, or that it is more controllable by the expedients of our art than it was in the times of its more general prevalence ; for it still proves fatal to one out of three of those who take it in the natural way. It may seem strange, therefore, that any part of the population of the capital can still be found insensible to the advantages of the protective process, or careless enough to forego the resource which the charity of parlia- ment most hmnanely and generously provides for its safety. We have the satisfaction, however, of finding that more than 10,000 of the poor have been vaccinated in London and its neighbourhood since our last Report ; and it is par- ticularly gratifying to learn, from the records of the last year's experience of the Small-pox Hospital, that no patient admitted there imder small-pox, after vaccination, had been vaccinated by any oflficer of this Establishment; whence it is fair to presume, that when the operation has been per- formed with due care and intelligence, it is much less liable to be followed by small-pox, and that such care and circum- spection are absolutely necessary to a just and confident ex- pectation that complete protection will be afforded by it. T