tised, and the falsehoods* even propagated to discredit vaccination, it is even now gaining ground. The Royal College of Surgeons have resolved not to inoculate with variolous matter. The College of Surgeons of Dublin have formed the same resolution. In Gloucestershire sixty-three surgeons, convinced of the pernicious tendency of inoculation to support and propagate the small-pox, associated, and pledged themselves to decline the practice of it.

The National Vaccine Establishment have recommended the imitation of such examples to the members of the profession in every part of these dominions, and they have no doubt but that the good effects of such advice will soon appear, in the diminished mortality and the increased population of the country.

It may be proper to add, that the surgeons at nine stations of this metropolis, reported to us on the 14th of last January that they had no complaint of any person vaccinated by them having afterwards had the small-pox.

The Board have again the pleasure of stating, that the money granted by Parliament during the last session has been sufficient to defray the expenses of the year 1812; and they are of opinion that the same sum will be adequate to the expenditure of the current year.

FRANCIS MILMAN, President.

By Order of the Board,

JAMES HERVEY, M.D. Register.

EXTRACTS from the APPENDIX.

Copy of a Letter from the President of the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh.

SIR, February 20th, 1813. In reply to your letter of the 5th January, I am directed by the Royal College of Physicians to inform you, that during the year 1812 vaccination has continued to be practised in this city as formerly, with uninterrupted success; that there have been very few instances where inoculation for the small-pox has been insisted on; and that the mortality from natural small-pox has, in as far as the Royal Col

* In the bills of mortality for the last year, the death of two persons was said to have been occasioned by the cow pock, but, upon investigation by the Board of the National Vaccine Establishment, they were found to have died from other causes, and the assertion was proved to be without foundation.

lege

lege can judge, been very inconsiderable in this part of Scotland. I have the honor to be, Sir,

Your most obedient humble Servant,

JAMES HAMILTON, jun. M.A. President.

To Dr. Hervey, Register of the

National Vaccine Institution.

Communication from the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.

The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, in reply to the request of the National Vaccine Board, have only to announce, as on former occasions, their unanimous and undiminished confidence in the security which vaccination affords against the small-pox. They have also every reason to believe that the public confidence remains undiminished. Among the higher ranks, vaccination continues to be universally practised, and though among the lower orders it has rather diminished for the last two or three years, the College attribute this entirely to the absence of any alarm from small-pox, and in no degree to a want of confidence in vaccination; for such want of confidence would naturally have led to applications for variolous inoculation; and this has not occurred within the knowledge of any member of the College.

The College regret that from the want of regular public registers they are unable to give any account of the mortality from small-pox in Scotland, or the proportion of the popu lation that has been secured against small-pox by vaccina. tion. They beg leave to suggest the propriety and importance of adopting some plan by which this knowledge may be obtained; for there is every reason to believe that as small-pox becomes more rare, vaccination will, among the lower orders, be still more neglected.

Edinburgh, 15th January, 1813.

JAMES LAW, President.

Copy of a Letter from the President of the Faculty of Physi cians and Surgeons in Glasgow.

SIR,

Glasgow, 17th February, 1813. Your letter of the 5th of January having been laid before the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons, a Committee was appointed to report thereon, and reported as follows:

"The Committee appointed to report to the Board of the National Vaccine Establishment, on the progress of vaccination in Glasgow, beg leave to state, that the deaths by smallpox in the year 1812, have in that city amounted to 24;

whereas

whereas the average number of deaths from 1801 to 1804 exceeded 100, and the deaths for the seven years previous to the introduction of vaccination exceed 200 yearly, though the population has of late years greatly increased; that eleven hundred and sixty-two have been gratuitously vaccinated at the Faculty Hall this year, besides the private patients of all the medical practitioners in town; and that the practice of inoculation for small-pox is totally discontinued, and the confidence in the preventive power of vaccination continues unabated."

The Faculty unanimously approve of this Report, and ordered a copy of it to be transmitted by the Præses to the Board of the National Vaccine Establishment.

I have the honor to be, Sir,

Your most obedient Servant,

J. BALMANNO, M.D. Præses of Faculty.

Report of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.

SIR, Dublin, February 5th, 1813. I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 5th ultimo, addressed to the President of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, requesting the further opinion of the College on the practice of vaccination and its effects; and inquiring if the practice of inoculation for the small-pox obtains in Ireland; and what may be the mortality from the natural small-pox during the year 1812: and I am directed by the College to state in reply thereto, that since they had the honor of communicating with you on this subject early in the last year, no circumstance has occurred to induce them to alter the favorable opinion then expressed on the practice of vaccination.

Genuine cow-pox, considered as a disease, appears to the College to be characterized by mildness, seldom induces any very obvious constitutional indisposition during its progress; and, it is believed, has uniformly proved an effectual prevention of small-pox.

A few cases of small-pox succeeding to vaccination have been reported to the College to have occurred since the last communication; but in these, either the cow-pox vesicle was imperfectly formed, or the other appearances, the existence of which is necessary to mark the true disease, were unsatisfactory. And further, the number of these cases is so small in proportion to that of vaccinated persons who are known to have

have resisted variolous contagion, particularly during the year 1812, that the confidence hitherto placed by the College in the anti-variolous effects of cow-pox remains unshaken.

For several years the members and licentiates of the College of Surgeons, and it is believed, all regular physicians and apothecaries in Ireland, have adopted the practice of vaccination; but it has been ascertained that some unauthorized practitioners continue to inoculate for the small-pox, and thus renovate and support sources of contagion.

To this practice has been ascribed the prevalence of natural small-pox, as an epidemic, in Dublin, and throughout the country, during the greater part of last year; the mortality occasioned by which, the College regret to be obliged to state, was very considerable, but the number cannot be ascertained, as returns are not made by the parishes. I have the honor to be, Sir, Your most obedient Servant, J. HENTHORN, Sec.

D. Hervey, M.D. &c. &c. &c.

Translation of a Statement on the Vaccine Disorder, by Dr. Servando de Meir y Noriega, an Ecclesiastic.

Dated London, 10th Jan. 1813. The small-pox, as well as the measles, were unknown in New Spain before the conquest. They were brought there, says Torquemado,* by a Negro from Pamfilo of Narvaez, and they occasioned such destruction, that he does not hesitate to affirm, that the greatest part of the Indians died, among whom was the Emperor Cuitlabuatzin, who succeeded Montezume. It is stated, that according to the reports, which Cortes ordered to be made to him, there died in the empire of Mexico alone three millions and a half. It was not long before fresh variolous infection was brought over, and according to Torquemada eight hundred thousand Indians perished.

Europe has continued to communicate this scourge at intervals of thirty, twenty, or a less number of years, and the infection extending itself from Vera Cruz to the most remote parts, has like a destructive plague spread terror, death, and desolation, over that continent. The longer it is retarded, the more fatal it becomes, because the danger increases with the age of the sufferers. Thirty-three years ago there were carried off more than ten thousand persons in the towns of Mexico and Puebla alone by this contagion, which was the last but one that has visited that kingdom, and was brought

there after an interval of nineteen years. It was from this last attack that I was a sufferer in my native country, Monterry, the capital of the new kingdom of Leon: and there was not a family who did not put on mourning. Some of these families disappeared altogether, because they were all adult persons, and had been seized by the epidemic in the city. Those who lived in the country were preserved from its influence by banking the dung-hills of the large and small cattle around their dwellings.

The small-pox acts with the greatest virulence upon those' parts of the body most exposed to the sun, such as the face and hands; and as the Indians are more exposed by their habit of life and manner of clothing, the havoc which it makes among them is more horrible.

Torquemada says, speaking of the first introduction of the infection, that the reason why it killed so many, was, because the Indians were ignorant of the nature of the disease, and bathed and scratched themselves.

In the new kingdom of Leon there were several wandering nations, so warlike that the Spaniards could not with arms in their hands resist their attacks upon their towns; the small-pox, however, extirpated almost all of them; and fifty years ago' heaps of bones, like so many trophies of the disease, were to be seen under the old tufted oaks in the fields. At this present time, when a savage sees one of his companions attacked with the infection, he leaves him, his horse, and his provisions, and flies to a great distance in the woods. It has never happened that the Spaniards have secured themselves against infection by stopping their communications with the Indians.

As soon as the inoculation for the natural small-pox was introduced into Europe, the Archbishop of Mexico, Haro, ordered the curates and ecclesiastics to perform it through their several towns with their own hands; and although the prejudices and scruples of some hindered the practice becoming general, it is certain that to this inoculation is to be attributed the diminished evil which the small-pox occasioned fourteen years ago.

The King of Spain having sent the art of vaccination with Dr. Balmis, it was received with such pompous ceremonies, both civil and military, that the people caught the enthu siasm. I believe that not a person remained at that time unvaccinated. The viceroy's lady herself, Dona Jues de Toregui, employed herself in vaccinating the Indian children. And as the vaccine is found in the cows in the provinces of Puebla and Michauacan, every body having it at hand, all the children are now vaccinated, and the small-pox has not appeared