According to the following table of the ages at death from smallpox, it will appear that a higher ratio of infants died of it in their first year at Glasgow than was the rule elsewhere, whether in the 18th or in the 19th century. It was only in the year 1837, when typhus was at its worst and smallpox had somewhat declined, that the deaths by the latter of infants under one year were fewer than those of infants in their second year:
Glasgow: Table of Deaths from Smallpox 1835 to 1839.
| Under 1 | 1-2 | 2-5 | 5-10 | 10-20 | 20-30 | 30-40 | Above 40 | Total | ||||||||||
| 1835 | 204 | 154 | 75 | 17 | 14 | 8 | 1 | 0 | 473 | |||||||||
| 1836 | 202 | 174 | 144 | 23 | 6 | 24 | 2 | 2 | 577 | |||||||||
| 1837 | 93 | 116 | 94 | 24 | 10 | 11 | 4 | 0 | 352 | |||||||||
| 1838 | 111 | 99 | 119 | 28 | 11 | 14 | 4 | 2 | 388 | |||||||||
| 1839 | 137 | 98 | 113 | 19 | 15 | 17 | 5 | 2 | 406 | |||||||||
| Totals of five years | 747 | 641 | 545 | 111 | 56 | 74 | 16 | 6 | 2196 | |||||||||
| Percentages | 34% | 29% | 25% | 5% | 7% | |||||||||||||
Cowan, who published these figures in 1840, had written eight years before, “I fear that if the list of infantile diseases were still published in the mortality bills many deaths from smallpox would annually be found.” We do, indeed, hear of epidemics of smallpox not far from Glasgow. At Stranraer, in Sept.-Nov. 1829, “measles and smallpox attacked with scarcely an exception” all the children in the place who had not acquired immunity either by previous attacks or by the influence of vaccination; “and even these powerful protectives were, in many instances, of no avail.” The subjects of “unmodified” smallpox were nearly all infants of the poorer class. In St John’s Street, occupied by decent Scots labouring people, ten children had “unmodified” smallpox and all recovered; in Little Dublin Street, so called from its Irish tenants, fourteen children had smallpox, of whom six died[1151]. At Ayr, about the same time, there was an epidemic, which came to a height in 1830, causing a considerable mortality[1152]. At Edinburgh in the winter of 1830-31, it was unusually prevalent and fatal, the epidemic dying out in May, 1831[1153].
For three or four years, 1843-46, there was another lull in the prevalence of smallpox in Glasgow; but the mortality rose again, reaching in the two years 1851 and 1852 the total of 1202, in a population of 360,138, which contrasted with the 2212 deaths in London in the same two years, and with the Paris mortality of 706 in the two years 1850 and 1851, in a population of about one million, the deaths being still almost wholly infantile in Glasgow while they were in great part of adults in Paris[1154].
Glasgow Smallpox.
| Year | Smallpox deaths | |
| 1840 | 455 | |
| 1841 (pop. 282,134) | 347 | |
| 1842 | 334 | |
| 1843 | 151 | |
| 1844 | 99 | |
| 1845 | 195 | |
| 1846 | not recorded | |
| 1847 | 592 | |
| 1848 | 300 | |
| 1849 | 366 | |
| 1850 | 456 | |
| 1851 (pop. 360,138) | 618 | |
| 1852 | 584 |
Registration of the causes of death began in Scotland in 1855. In the first decennial period, to 1864, the smallpox deaths were 10,548, falling upon infancy and other age-periods as in the following table[1155]:
| Age-periods | Smallpox deaths | |
| Under three months | 774 | |
| Three to six months | 668 | |
| Six to twelve months | 1543 | |
| One to two years | 1765 | |
| Two to three years | 1132 | |
| Three to four years | 798 | |
| Four to five years | 514 | |
| Total under five years | 7194 | |
| Above five years | 3354 | |
| 10,548 | ||