SYNOPSIS
CITATION Hingeston, J. A. , Brighton, May 1853. SUMMARY “The frequent failure of vaccination is now so generally admitted, that statistical proofs are not requisite in order to establish its truth. People look upon it as an equal chance, whether those who have been vaccinated shall be able to resist any attack of the small-pox […]
TITLE
Failure of Vaccine
CITATION
Hingeston, J. A. , Brighton, May 1853.
SUMMARY
“The frequent failure of vaccination is now so generally admitted, that statistical proofs are not requisite in order
to establish its truth. People look upon it as an equal chance, whether those who have been vaccinated shall be
able to resist any attack of the small-pox or not, should they be exposed to it; while some go so far as to surmise, hastily and rashly enough, that vaccination is all but useless. A few vote for a return to the old various inoculation; and a few, still more inconsiderate, boldly declare themselves in favour of the small-pox itself, as the only and the surest guarantee of their safety. There is, of course, a great deal of exaggeration and misrepresentation in expressions of this sort; and much more is affirmed against the non-=protective agency of vaccine lymph, than, as is usual, a dispassionate inquiry into all the circumstances of the case with justify or imply. The board and undisputed fact of the actual diminution of small-pox since vaccination has been introduced and practised is alone sufficient to contradict these wild notions, and to refute the vulgar prejudices afloat upon the subject. For, even during an occasional outbreak, the disease is nothing now to what it used to be formerly, when the old inoculation, which itself not free from risk, was the only obstacle opposed to its incessant and alarming encroachments.”
