9lS On VaccmatioTt. 



practice of it. though it has received a check in some quar- 

 ters, appears Still to be upon the increase in most parts of 

 the united kingdom. 



II. The College of Physicians, in giving their observa- 

 tions and opinions on the practice of vaccination, think it 

 right to premise, that they advance nothing but what is sup- 

 ported by the multiplied and unequivocal evidence which has 

 been brought before them, and they have not considered any 

 facts as proved but what have been stated from actual ob- 

 servation. 



Vaccination appears to be in general perfectly safe ; the 

 instances to the contrary being extremely rare. The disease 

 excited by it is slight, and seldom prevents those under it 

 from following their ordinary occupations. It has been 

 conumuiicated with safely to pregnant women, to children 

 during dentition, and in their earliest infancy ; in all which 

 respects it possesses material advantages over inoculation for 

 the small-po,\ ; which, though productive of a disease ge- 

 nerally mild, yet sometimes occasions alarming symptoms, 

 and is in a few cases fatal. 



The security derived from vaccination against the small- 

 pox, if not absolutely perfect, is as nearly so as can perhaps 

 be expected from any human discovery ; for amongst several 

 hundred tliousand cases, v.ith the results of which the col- 

 lege have been made acquainted, the number of alleged 

 failures has been surprisingly small, so much so, as to form 

 certainly no reasonable objection to the general adoption of 

 vaccination j for it appears that there are not nearly so many 

 failures, in a given number of vaccinated persons, as there 

 are deaths in an equal number of persons inoculated for the 

 small-pox. Nothing can more clearly demonstrate the su- 

 periority of vaccination over the inoculation of the small- 

 pox, than this consideration; and it is a most important 

 fact, which has been confirmed in the course of this inquiry, 

 that in almost every case where the small-pox has succeeded 

 vaccination, whether by inoculation or by casual infection, 

 the disease has varied much from its ordinary course ; it has 

 neither been the same in the violence nor in the duration 

 or its symptoms, but has, with very few exceptions, been 



remarkably 



