138 SMALL- POX IN SHKKF 



has been constantly prevalent, yet at that period only 

 four of the above number were known to have con- 

 tracted the small-pox, which is about 1 in 8592 cases ; 

 and in those four the disease appeared in a mitigated 

 form, without danger*." 



Strange as it may appear, it is nevertheless an ad- 

 mitted fact, that vaccination has received less encourage- 

 ment from the lesrislature of England than from most of 

 the governments of Europe. And here, where the ope- 

 ration ought to be best performed, and consequently be 

 attended with the most beneficial effects, the contrary 

 is the case. Plumbe remarks that '*' this is strikingly 

 exemplified in the present state of vaccination in Great 

 Britain^ compared with its state in other countries in 

 Europe. In the latter, general vaccination was or- 

 dered by government : no one who had neither vaccine 

 nor small-pox could be confirmed, put to school, ap- 

 prenticed, or married. Small-pox inoculation was 

 prohibited : if it appeared in any house, that house was 

 put under quarantine ; and in one territory, no person 

 with small-pox was allowed to enter it. By such means 

 the mortality from this disease, in 1818, had been 

 prodigiously lessened. In Copenhagen it had been 

 reduced from 5500 durmg twelve years, to 158 during 

 sixteen years. In Prussia it had been reduced from 

 40,000 annually to 3000; and in Berlin, in 1819, only 

 twenty-Jive persojis died of this disease. In Bavaria, 

 only five persons died of small-pox in eleven years ; and 

 in the principality of Anspach it zaas completely exter- 

 minatedj-." 



* Plumbe on Vaccination, p. 55 & seq. 

 t Ibid., p. 47. 



