Proposal for encouraging Vaccination. 281 



The raja of Tanjore encourages vaccination as much as pos- 

 sible, and the dewar of Travancore has himself submitted 

 to it. 



PROPOSAL FOR ENCOURAGING THE PRACTICE OF VAC- 



CIXATION. 



The gieat number of persons who have taken the small- 

 pox ;n the present year shows plainly that so manv have 

 not been vaccinated as hath been represented. Indeed, we 

 have long more than suspected that accounts given by 

 many practitioners to the public of the number iuoculated 

 by each of them was not exact. A practitioner is too apt 

 to assume consequence from the long list he. produces, and 

 this it is makes him apt to plume himself upon the credit 

 given to h:m for the number rather than for the accu- 

 racy and n-n'elrv of his observations ; or it induces liim to 

 strive to swell his list of number, rather than to bestow the 

 labour of observation. Hence too it has happened that 

 many persons have taken the small-pox subsequently to 

 the practice of such inexact inoculators for the cow-pock. 

 It is decisive that the numbers given to the public are ex- 

 aggerated, noi onlv for the reason just set forth, but be- 

 cause the total united sum from the diflerent lists exceeds 

 the sum on any reasonable calculation which the population 

 affords to be inoculated. If we remove a cypher from the 

 figures containing the numbers asserted, the sum remain- 

 ing will be less remote from the n)ost accurate calculation 

 of the real number vaccinated : for instance, in some state- 

 ments, instead of 10,000 say 1,0003 tor 3,000 say 500, and 

 so in proportion. 



The late prevalence of the small-pox has not only led to 

 the above remarks, but to the consideration of the means 

 of rendering vaccination effectual for extinguishing the 

 small-pox. Supposing that when the cow- pock is duly 

 excited, a person has as great a chance of security as after 

 due inoculation for the small-pox, it was announced at a 

 public meeting — the annual one of the original Vaccine 

 Pock Institution, Broad Street, on the 7th February )803, — 

 that a plan would be brought forward to show the necessity 

 of laws for the inoculation of every subject within a cer- 

 tain period after birth, as well as for the inniiediate prohi- 

 bition of the inoculation of the small-pox. It was con- 

 tended that the prohibition of the small-pox inoculation 

 alone would be inadequate to the purpose of extinguishing 

 the sniall-pox ; and it was maintained that it wa'? not more 

 an infringement of llie liberty of the subject to render the 



cow-pock 



