Adding in proof of the manner in which he had been crammed by the said “able and learned persons”—
It is unnecessary for me to speak of the certainty of Vaccination as a preventive of Smallpox, that being a point on which the whole medical profession have arrived at complete unanimity!
The statistics with which Lord Lyttelton supported the necessity for compulsion are interesting as indicating the extent and irregularity of vaccination among the English people. He said—
We are told that the number of births registered in England and Wales in the year ending 29th September, 1852, was 601,839, and the number vaccinated under the Act of 1840 was 397,128; so that, in round numbers, 400,000 were vaccinated by the machinery in force, leaving only 200,000, or one-third of the whole number, to be treated by private vaccination. There are several fallacies in that statement. The general result is by no means the consequence of anything like a uniform system throughout the country. I have before me a detailed statement of the extent of Vaccination in various parts of England in 1851, which shows there is great want of uniformity in certain districts. In towns where people have a shorter distance to go to get their children vaccinated, the result is more favourable than in the rural districts. For example, in Birmingham, on the total number of births in 1851, the vaccinations were 91 per cent.; in Leicester they were only 41 per cent.; and in Loughborough only 18 per cent. The contrast between the manufacturing and the rural districts is favourable on the side of the former. In Bideford, the vaccinations were only 11 per cent. upon the births; in West Ashford in Kent, they were only 22 per cent.; and in Winchcomb only 6 per cent. While the general average is lower in the agricultural than in the manufacturing districts, some contrary instances are found. Thus in Derby the vaccinations are only 42 per cent.; while at Watford, which is a rural district, the vaccinations were 126 per cent. upon the births in 1851—which included, of course, the vaccination of children born in previous years. But in London, and in no less a parish than that of St. James, Westminster, it is reported that in 1851 on 973 births only 44 vaccinations took place; while in Wellingborough Union, where there were 800 births in 1851, no vaccination at all is reported!
Strange to say, Lord Lyttelton made no attempt to complete his argument. He ought to have shown that in the places where vaccination was least practised there was most smallpox, and where most practised there was least smallpox. Had he made the attempt, his eyes might have been opened to the untrustworthy character of “the able and learned person” by whom he had been mendaciously primed.
Lord Shaftesbury, in supporting the measure, adduced similar instances of neglected vaccination as follows—
| Births 1851. | Vaccinations. | |
| Paddington | 1458 | 386 |
| Hampstead | 286 | 93 |
| Huntingdon | 805 | 68 |
| St. Neots | 671 | 17 |
| Carnarvon | 929 | 125 |
| Bangor and Beaumaris | 1025 | 420 |
| Newton Abbott | 1563 | 150 |
He, too, forgot to show that these places were “decimated” (that’s the word) with smallpox, whilst other places where vaccination was generally practised enjoyed exemption. On the contrary, with curious inconsequence, he went on to recommend a sure prescription of his own, namely, improved dwellings for the poor. These were his words—