Whitehaven, which had, like Liverpool, a large part of its labouring population housed in cellars, suffered severely from smallpox in 1783: “incredible numbers,” says Heysham, of Carlisle, were attacked, of whom “scarcely one in three survived.” The annual reports of its dispensary, which begin from that year, show a small number of calls to smallpox cases in most years; but it must have happened there, as Clark found it in Newcastle, that medical aid was not often sought for the children of the poor in smallpox unless they were dying. Smallpox was perhaps not peculiar among infantile troubles in that respect; but it is remarkable that it should have fallen so little under the notice of practitioners considering how important its aggregate effects were on the death-rate. In 1753 the readers of the Gentleman’s Magazine took some interest in the question whether smallpox required the aid of a physician or an apothecary, or whether a nurse were not sufficient: instances were adduced in support of the latter view, while the serious claims of smallpox to regular medical attendance were elaborately urged in a letter several columns long. At Newcastle, at all events, the prevalence and fatality of smallpox were actually unknown to Dr Clark, for all his zeal and statistical accuracy. Assuming from the experience of some other populous industrial towns, that it made a sixth part of the deaths from all causes, he estimated its annual mortality at 130.
Smallpox in Glasgow towards the end of the 18th century appears to have been more mortal to children than anywhere else in Britain. The figures are not known previous to 1783, from which year the laborious researches of Dr Robert Watt in the burial registers begin; but it is probable that the conditions were as favourable to smallpox at an earlier period[1023]. In the year 1755 its mortality is given thus: “buried, men 273, women 206, children 584, total 963[1024].”
The following table shows the Glasgow deaths from smallpox, and from all causes at all ages and at three age-periods under ten:
Glasgow Mortality by Smallpox and all causes, 1783-1800.
| Year | All deaths | Smallpox deaths | All deaths under Two | All deaths 2-5 | All deaths 5-10 | |||||
| 1783 | 1413 | 155 | 479 | 174 | 66 | |||||
| 1784 | 1623 | 425 | 671 | 161 | 45 | |||||
| 1785 | 1552 | 218 | 576 | 126 | 42 | |||||
| 1786 | 1622 | 348 | 706 | 179 | 56 | |||||
| 1787 | 1802 | 410 | 746 | 205 | 65 | |||||
| 1788 | 1982 | 399 | 770 | 221 | 68 | |||||
| 1789 | 1753 | 366 | 794 | 188 | 76 | |||||
| 1790 | 1866 | 336 | 903 | 247 | 86 | |||||
| 1791 | 2146 | 607 | 984 | 320 | 63 | |||||
| 1792 | 1848 | 202 | 664 | 184 | 54 | |||||
| 1793 | 2045 | 389 | 807 | 239 | 80 | |||||
| 1794 | 1445 | 235 | 553 | 144 | 62 | |||||
| 1795 | 1901 | 402 | 761 | 225 | 62 | |||||
| 1796 | 1369 | 177 | 562 | 181 | 54 | |||||
| 1797 | 1662 | 354 | 586 | 241 | 57 | |||||
| 1798 | 1603 | 309 | 642 | 181 | 41 | |||||
| 1799 | 1906 | 370 | 783 | 244 | 78 | |||||
| 1800 | 1550 | 257 | 545 | 148 | 53 |
Dividing the period into three of six years each, and abstracting the ratios, Watt got the following result[1025], by which it appears that smallpox made between a fifth and a sixth of the whole mortality, and presumably a full third of all the deaths under five years:
| Six-years period | All deaths | Ratio of fevers | Ratio of smallpox | Ratio under five years, all deaths | ||||
| 1783 to 1788 | 9994 | 12·65 | 19·55 | 50·06 | ||||
| 1789 to 1794 | 11103 | 8·43 | 18·22 | 53·28 | ||||
| 1795 to 1800 | 9991 | 8·24 | 18·70 | 51·03 |
The Glasgow figures bear out the rule that the greater the mortality of children from all causes, the greater the mortality from smallpox. The ratio of infantile deaths (under two) was actually higher in Glasgow in the end of the 18th century than in London during the very worst period of its history, the time of excessive drunkenness in the second quarter of the 18th century: the London deaths under two years were 38·6, and from two to five 11·37 per cent. of the annual average deaths from 1728 to 1737, while the Glasgow maxima were 42·38 and 11·90.
The examples last given are all of crowded industrial towns, the sanitary condition of which has been referred to in the chapter on Typhus. The market towns and the villages doubtless had the same relatively favourable experiences of smallpox which have been shown for them in the first half of the 18th century. It happens that the figures for Boston, Lincolnshire, of which a twenty-years series has been given already, are complete to the end of the century.
Smallpox Deaths in Boston, Lincolnshire, 1769-1800.