Popular Science Monthly - Oct, Nov, Dec, 1915 — Volume 86 by Anonymous
page 132 of 485 (27%)
page 132 of 485 (27%)
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In London there were in 48 years of the seventeenth century no less than 10 epidemics of smallpox; in the whole of the eighteenth, 19; and in the nineteenth no epidemic at all during which smallpox was responsible for more than one tenth of the deaths from all causes in any one year. In Sweden, the highest death-rate before vaccination was 7.23 per 1,000 persons, the lowest 0.30; under permissive vaccination the highest was 2.57, the lowest 0.12; under compulsory vaccination the highest was 0.94, the lowest 0.0005. It is so frequently said that the disappearance of smallpox is due not to vaccination, but to improved general hygiene, that we must look into this criticism with some care. In the first place, a large diminution in the mortality from smallpox occurred before there was any great change in the unsanitary conditions of the English towns, before there was any enforcing of the isolation of patients either in hospitals or in their own homes. Since the introduction of vaccination, measles and whooping cough still remain in the status quo ante, while smallpox has been exterminated in all fully vaccinated communities, these two diseases of children are as prevalent as ever in England even although the general sanitary conditions have been immensely improved in that country. Of course the effects of vaccination wear out in time, and that is why it is well to be revaccinated once or twice. Now there has been a remarkable progressive change in the age-incidence of smallpox "which can only be explained," says Dr. Newsholme, "on the assumption that vaccination protects children from smallpox and |
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