In April, 1801, the Institution was removed to a more commodious house, 5 Golden Square. It was the first establishment of the kind in the world. In the conspectus of the Institution it was stated—
Of above 4000 persons who have had the inoculated Cowpock one only has died. There is, however, good ground for believing that the proportional mortality will be even less than here stated.
Not a single well-attested instance has been produced among more than 2000 inoculated with Cowpock, and subsequently with Smallpox, of the Smallpox being taken, although many were exposed to the infectious effluvia of that disease. Traditionally the fact is established from time immemorial that after Cowpox there is no Smallpox.
It may be fairly affirmed, that the inoculated Cowpock is generally a much slighter disease than the inoculated Smallpox; and that the proportion of severe cases in the latter is to the former as at least ten to one.
It does not appear the genuine Vaccine Pock can be propagated like the Smallpox by effluvia from persons labouring under it. Hence if the Vaccine Inoculation should be universally instituted in place of the Smallpox, it is reasonable to conclude, that this most loathsome and fatal malady will be extinguished; and, like the Sweating-Sickness, the Plague, certain forms of leprosy, etc., be known in this country only by name.
It does not appear that the Vaccine Poison, like that of the Smallpox, can be conveyed so as to produce the disease indirectly from diseased persons, by adhering to clothes, furniture, bedding, letters, etc. Hence no danger of its propagation in these channels is to be apprehended from the universal practice of the inoculation of the Cowpock.
It has been found that a person, whose constitution has distinctly undergone the Vaccine Disease, is in future insusceptible of the same disorder. [Thus re-vaccination was treated as impossible.]
Experience shows, that there is no reason to apprehend the smallest chance of deformities of the skin from the Vaccine Inoculation.
The extensive practice of the Vaccine Inoculation in the present year, and the accounts of the disease in the casual way do not show that any other disease will be excited subsequently.