Smallpox in Boston, Lincolnshire, 1749-68.
| Year | Baptised | Buried | Died by Smallpox | |||
| 1749 | 68 | 120 | 48 | |||
| 1750 | 80 | 93 | — | |||
| 1751 | 55 | 59 | — | |||
| 1752 | 88 | 85 | — | |||
| 1753 | 79 | 73 | — | |||
| 1754 | 88 | 111 | 1 | |||
| 1755 | 74 | 102 | 19 | |||
| 1756 | 66 | 110 | 34 | |||
| 1757 | 93 | 86 | 4 | |||
| 1758 | 83 | 88 | 4 | |||
| 1759 | 102 | 91 | — | |||
| 1760 | 106 | 84 | 2 | |||
| 1761 | 80 | 94 | — | |||
| 1762 | 95 | 134 | 3 | |||
| 1763 | 92 | 206 | 69 | |||
| 1764 | 130 | 102 | 5 | |||
| 1765 | 112 | 113 | — | |||
| 1766 | 144 | 117 | — | |||
| 1767 | 129 | 95 | — | |||
| 1768 | 131 | 117 | — |
This was a favourable instance of urban smallpox in the 18th century, Boston having “no circumstances of narrow streets, crowded houses, manufactories or want of medical assistance.” We may compare with it an industrial town only a little larger, the weaving town of Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, the smallpox epidemics of which came as follows[1005]:
Smallpox in Kilmarnock, 1728-63.
| Year | Baptised | Buried | Died by Smallpox | |||
| 1728 | 111 | 162 | 66 | |||
| 1729 | — | — | — | |||
| 1730 | — | — | — | |||
| 1731 | — | — | — | |||
| 1732 | — | — | — | |||
| 1733 | — | — | 45 | |||
| 1734 | — | — | — | |||
| 1735 | — | — | — | |||
| 1736 | 135 | 147 | 66 | |||
| 1737 | — | — | — | |||
| 1738 | — | — | — | |||
| 1739 | — | — | — | |||
| 1740 | 95 | 164 | 66 | |||
| 1741 | — | — | — | |||
| 1742 | — | — | — | |||
| 1743 | — | — | — | |||
| 1744 | — | — | — | |||
| 1745 | 116 | 102 | 74 | |||
| 1746 | — | — | 8 | |||
| 1747 | — | — | — | |||
| 1748 | — | — | 2 | |||
| 1749 | 134 | 149 | 79 | |||
| 1750 | — | — | 5 | |||
| 1751 | — | — | 1 | |||
| 1752 | — | — | — | |||
| 1753 | — | — | 1 | |||
| 1754 | 146 | 203 | 95 | |||
| 1755 | — | — | — | |||
| 1756 | — | — | — | |||
| 1757 | 125 | 132 | 37 | |||
| 1758 | — | — | 9 | |||
| 1759 | — | — | — | |||
| 1760 | — | — | — | |||
| 1761 | — | — | — | |||
| 1762 | 132 | 173 | 66 | |||
| 1763 | — | — | 2 |
Although Kilmarnock had an average annual excess of baptisms over burials (134 to 107), which was more than that of Boston, its smallpox mortality was higher than that of the Lincolnshire market town. On an annual average, one death in eleven from all causes was by smallpox at Boston, one in six at Kilmarnock. In the former the epidemics came at intervals of about five years, in the latter at intervals of three or four. The oftener the epidemic came, the earlier in life it attacked children; and in all subsequent experience it has been found that smallpox is far more mortal to the ages below five than to the ages from five to ten or fifteen. More generally, the conditions were worse for young children in a weaving town than in a market town of nearly the same size. In the populous weaving parish of Dunse, 130 children are said to have died of smallpox in 1733, during a space of three months[1006].
The ages at which deaths from smallpox occurred in Kilmarnock from 1728 to 1763 are strikingly different from those already given for the small market town or village of Aynho, near Banbury, in 1723-24; at the latter the greater part of the fatalities, although not of the attacks, happened to persons between twenty and fifty; at the former nine-tenths of the deaths were of infants and young children, as in the following:
Ages at Death from Smallpox, Kilmarnock, 1728-63.
| Deaths at all ages | Under One | One to Two | Two to Three | Three to Four | Four to Five | Five to Six | Above Six | Age not stated | ||||||||
| 622 | 118 | 146 | 136 | 101 | 62 | 23 | 27 | 9 |
This almost exclusive incidence of fatal smallpox upon infants and young children in a weaving town during the middle third of the 18th century we shall find abundantly confirmed for English manufacturing and other populous towns in the last third of the 18th century, and thereafter until the middle of the 19th century. On the other hand, the less populous towns and the country districts continued in the 18th century to furnish a fair share of adult cases, for the reason that epidemics came to them at longer intervals, wherein many had passed from infancy to childhood, and even from childhood to youth or maturity, without once encountering the risk of epidemic contagion.