State board of Health. 
265 
with the special study of some branch of sanitary science, with the 
view of presenting the result of such investigations to the people. 
We present herewith the fruit of such labor in a series of papers, 
which are designed to convey such knowledge in a popular, rather 
than in a scientific manner, which papers we commend to your at¬ 
tention. 
SMALL rox AND ITS PKOPIIYLAXIS. 
Of the reports herewith given, that of Dr. Griffin, on small pox, 
will possess special interest from the fact that this disease has been, 
and now is, unusually prevalent and fatal in various places in the 
state. We commend its teachings to careful study. Small pox 
may be pointed to as at once the most amenable of all diseases to 
prevention, and the most destructive of all diseases when unmodi¬ 
fied. Capable, as we believe, of being utterly exterminated^ it has 
lost none of its virulence since the time when, during the single 
century preceding the discovery of vaccination, it caused the death 
of 4c,000,000 of human beings on the continent of Europe. In 
the metropolis of this state, during the last half of the year just 
closed, it caused the death of 162 persons, the mortality in one 
ward reaching, in the month of November, the frightful figures of 
per cent, of all cases. As might have been anticipated the 
health officer reports that the disease hcs prevailed almost wholly 
among those who oppose vaccination. We believe that properly 
applied and enforced, preventive measures might have saved these 
162 lives, and the^ hundreds of other cases of sickness from this 
loathsome disease which occurred during the same period of time, 
with all their attendant burthens of woe, of sorrow, of interrupted 
labor and business, and of enormous expense, but such results can 
be accomplished only by aid of stringent laws making vaccination 
and revaccination compulsory. We believe that public opinion 
and a due regard on the part of the government for tl:e welfare of 
the people, will in time demand this; but this board is not now 
prepared to do more than call your attention to these facts, and to 
state that in its judgment, based both upon personal observation 
and extensive correspondence on the subject, much less than one- 
half of the population of the state are now protected against this 
dire scourge. 
This subject has been deemed of sufficient importance in view of 
the prevalence of the disease, to call for the issue of a special cir- 
