582 ANNUAL KECOKD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



of mortality. It is therefore concluded that it is in the high- 

 est degree important, both in the interest of the individual 

 and of the public, to continue to extend in every possible 

 way the practice of revaccination. 3 JB^July 14, 4G9. 



VACCINATION IN AFRICANS. 



The London Lancet publishes a communication in regard 

 to vaccination in Africans which will be, of interest if sub- 

 stantiated by farther experiments, namely, that the vesicles 

 take a longer time to develop than in the white man. This 

 experiment was tried by Dr. Mortimer in several instances, 

 all of which proved the correctness of the proposition as as- 

 serted. Whether the same condition of things applies to the 

 negro in the New World is not stated by the writer. 6 A, 

 November 12,622. 



SMALL-POX IN ENGLAND. 



A wave of epidemic small-pox seems to be at present mov- 

 ing over the greater part of the world. This has already 

 been noticed in various places in the United States, and in 

 an equally marked degree in Europe. Paris has been afflict- 

 ed with it for a long time, so as to have invoked the greatest 

 care to ameliorate or eradicate the disease. Great Britain is 

 now experiencing the infliction, which in London is more de- 

 structive at the present time than it has been at any period 

 during the present century. The scientific and medical jour- 

 nals of that city are filled with suggestions for action, and 

 insist that no disease is more directlv under human control 

 than the small-pox, and that the points to be aimed at are, in 

 the first place, vaccination of every person in the city, and 

 revaccinating wherever necessary; and, second, precautions 

 in the way of purification, isolation, and disinfection. That 

 vaccination does act to a very great degree in the prevention 

 of the disease is considered by most of the journals unques- 

 tionable, the statistics showing that the proportion of deaths 

 is very much less in districts where vaccination lias been at- 

 tended to than elsewhere. It is also shown, in the rare in- 

 stances where vaccinated persons have taken the disease, that 

 it is much less fatal than it would otherwise have been, and 

 that in the present epidemic not more than six per cent, die 

 of small-pox of those who have been vaccinated, while about 



