[1148] Glas. Med. Journ. I. 105: “There exists at present among the poorer classes an increasing carelessness and aversion to vaccination, from a belief that it does not afford adequate protection from the varioloid disease.”
[1149] Andrew Buchanan, M.D. “Present Condition of the Poor in Glasgow.” Glasg. Med. Journ. III. (1830), 437.
[1150] Chalmers had been urging the repeal of the Corn Law since 1819. In a letter to Wilberforce, Glasgow, 15 Dec. 1819, he says: “From my extensive mingling with the people, I am quite confident in affirming the power of another expedient to be such that it would operate with all the quickness and effect of a charm in lulling their agitated spirits—I mean the repeal of the Corn Bill.” Hanna’s Memoirs of Dr Chalmers, 1850, II. 250.
[1151] J. Orgill, “Obs. on the Measles and Smallpox that prevailed epidemically in Stranraer, in the autumn of 1829.” Glasg. Med. Journ. IV. 351.
[1152] McDerment, ibid. IV. 201.
[1153] Howison, ibid. V. 256-7.
[1154] J. C. Steele, Glasg. Med. Journ. N. S. I. 59.
[1155] Eleventh detailed Report of the Regr.-Genl. for Scotland, 1865, p. xxxix. The Report says that vaccination was general during the above period, although there was no Vaccination Act for Scotland (until 1864). This was familiar knowledge in Scotland, so much so that the necessity for a compulsory law, on the English model, was not quite obvious in the medical circles of Edinburgh. See Christison’s address to the Social Science Association at Edinburgh in 1863 (p. 106). In my own recollection of Aberdeenshire, the vaccination of infants was as little neglected as their baptism; the law made no real difference.
[1156] “An Enquiry into the Mortality among the Poor in the City of Limerick.” Journ. Statist. Soc. Jan. 1841, III. 316.
[1157] The Census of Ireland, 1841. Parl. Papers, 1843. Report on the Tables of Deaths, by W. R. Wilde.