Need to see some statistics to help you understand that vaccination for smallpox worked?
How’s this article from The Times…
Statistics on Vaccination and Smallpox
Published on July 25, 1923, the article simply published statistics on smallpox admissions to the hospital in Gloucester, England.
Admissions from a “deplorable epidemic” that was easily preventable.
Although it was considered to be mild, the 1923 smallpox epidemic in Gloucester was reminiscent of an early smallpox epidemic in the city.
In 1896, the “last great smallpox epidemic” hit Gloucester, which was considered to be the “least vaccinated city” in England.
“As the severity of the outbreak became apparent, many parents took their children to free vaccination stations. The Board of Guardians, which now viewed vaccination as a way of controlling the epidemic, finally formed a committee to oversee house-to-house vaccination visits and instructed employers to get their staff – many of whom may have received vaccinations as babies – re-vaccinated.”
The child whose town rejected vaccines
By the end of the 1896 outbreak, statistics revealed that about 2,000 people, mostly unvaccinated children, developed smallpox. Nearly 40% of them died, while the “handful of these who had been vaccinated all survived.”
And while they got vaccinated to stop the outbreak, they didn’t learn their lesson.
“This deplorable epidemic, which on one area or another an at one time or another has now been in being since last autumn, need never have occurred had the population availed itself of vaccination. Few more lamentable demonstrations of the evil effects of a stupid and mischievous propaganda have ever been afforded.”
The Times on The Smallpox Epidemic and the Serious Position in Gloucester
And that’s how we ended up with another epidemic in Gloucester.
“Gloucester residents faced with a severe outbreak embraced vaccination at the time, in something akin to a religious conversion, but the level of support for compulsory vaccination at birth hardly changed. Just two years later a new law allowed parents to opt out of vaccination based on their conscience.”
The child whose town rejected vaccines
There were at least four deaths in the “mild” Gloucester smallpox epidemic of 1923, including an infant who was just six weeks old.
What can we learn from these smallpox epidemics?
Most of us will learn that vaccines work and that skipping or delaying a child’s vaccinations simply leaves them that at risk to catch a vaccine preventable disease.
More on Vaccination and Smallpox
- How Misinformed and Irresponsible Parents Led to Outbreaks of Smallpox
- Vaccinated vs Unvaccinated – Smallpox Edition
- The Leicester Method and Smallpox Eradication
- The child whose town rejected vaccines
- Gloucester smallpox epidemic, 1896: Ethel Cromwell, aged about 14 years, as a smallpox patient. Photograph by H.C.F., 1896.
- Story of the Small-Pox Epidemic in Gloucester
- The Defense of London Against Smallpox
- The anti-vaccination movement that gripped Victorian England