VACCINATION.
In the year 1832, it was found that the small-pox had just left dismal traces of its ravages in the department: fathers mourned their children now dead, or so disfigured and mutilated as to become unfit for the active business of life; the widow, too, wept for her lost husband, and the offspring of a mutual affection were left to feel the want of a father’s care.
Curates, and municipal bodies, most particularly intrusted with the frequently repeated charge of preserving the vaccine fluid, unhappily neglected a trust so important; and the heads of families, who joined in the same carelessness, did not consider, until the fatal epidemic swept their children from their arms, that they were ever to taste the bitter fruit of their own improvident indifference. But to avoid the recurrence, on any future occasion, of so dreadful and destructive a malady, the prefect caused a supply of the precious vaccine matter to be procured from Lima; which, if carefully propagated, may yet save victims without number from adding to that depopulation which incessant warfare has, of late years, caused among his fellow countrymen.