f 20 Report of the National Vaccine Estalllskment. 



be guilty of an improvidence similar to that of a parent 

 who should choose for his son a military service, in which 

 there was one cliance in three hundred of being killed, iri 

 preference to a station, where there was only one chance in 

 a thousand of being slightly wounded. 



The Board are of opinion, that vaccination still rests upon 

 the basis on which it was placed by the Reports of the se- 

 veral Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons of the United 

 Kingdom, which were laid before Parliament in the year 

 I8O7. 'lliat the general advantages of vaccination are not 

 discredited by the instances of failure which have recently 

 occurred, the proportion of failures still remaining less in 

 number than the deaths which take place from the inocu- 

 lated small-pox. They are led by their information to be- 

 hcve, that since this practice has been fully established, no 

 death has in any instance occurred from small-pox after 

 vaccination. — That in most of the cases \n which vaccina- 

 tion has failed, the small-pox has been a disease remarka- 

 bly mild, and of unusually short duration ; and they are 

 further of opinion, that the severity of the symptoms with 

 which Mr. Grosvenor was affected, I'orms an exception to 

 a eencral rule. 



That absolute security from the natural small-pox is not 

 even to be attained by small-pox inoculation, is sufficiently 

 evident from the annexed cases ; and the Board are enabled 

 to stale, that they have been made acquainted with instances 

 of individuals who have twice undergone the natural small- 

 pox. 



Under all these circumstances, the Board feel justified in 

 still recommending and promoting vaccination, and in de- 

 claring their unabated confidence in this practice. Since 

 in some peculiar franies of constitution the repetition of 

 small-pox is neither prevented by inoculation nor casual 

 infection, the Board are of opinion, that in such peculiar 

 constitutions the occurrence of small-pox after vaccination 

 may be reasonably expected, and perhaps in a greater pro- 

 portion ; but with this admission, they do not hesitate to 

 maintain, that the proportionate advantages of vaccination 

 to individuals and the public, are infinitely greater than 

 those of small-pox inoculation. 



They are anxious, that the existence of certain peculiarities 

 of the human frame, by which some individuals are ren- 

 dered by nature more or less susceptible of eruptive fevers, 

 and of the recurrence of such disorders, should be publicly 

 known ; for they feel confident,, that a due consideration of 

 these circimistancesj and a just feeling of the welfare of the 



communityj 



