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              An Estimate of the True Value of Vaccination
                    as a Security Against Small Pox

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                                   AN
                               ESTIMATE,
                               _&c. &c._




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 Newcastle; Printed by T. & J. Hodgson,
            Union Street




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                                   AN

                                ESTIMATE

                          OF THE TRUE VALUE OF

                               VACCINATION

                                  AS A

                       SECURITY AGAINST SMALL POX.


                                   BY

                             T. M. GREENHOW,

           MEMBER OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS IN LONDON;
            SURGEON TO THE LYING-IN HOSPITAL, TO THE CHARITY
                     FOR POOR MARRIED WOMEN LYING IN
                     AT THEIR OWN HOUSES, AND TO THE
                        INFIRMARY FOR DISEASES OF
                           THE EYE, NEWCASTLE.


 “And in order to stimulate the wise and good to aim strenuously at this
 consummation (the total extirpation of Small Pox), let it be constantly
 borne in mind, that the adversary they are contending with is the
 greatest scourge that has ever afflicted humanity. That it is so, all
 history, civil and medical, proclaims; for though the term Plague
 carries a sound of greater horror and dismay, we should probably be
 within the truth, if we were to assert, that Small Pox has destroyed a
 hundred for every one that has perished by the Plague.”

                                                    _Sir Gilbert Blane._


                                 LONDON:

               PRINTED FOR BALDWIN, CRADOCK, AND JOY; AND
                      EMERSON CHARNLEY, NEWCASTLE.

                                  1825.

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                                Preface.


 My design, in entering upon the following little work, has been to
 collect, and to compress within as narrow a compass as possible, the
 principal facts and evidences upon which the claims of Vaccination are
 founded; that the public may be furnished, in a concise but
 comprehensive form, with the information which is essential to their
 forming a correct judgment on this momentous question.

 That much misapprehension and some prejudice prevail on this subject,
 my recent observation and experience have convinced me; and when I
 reflect on the pernicious effects, which, in Newcastle and its
 neighbourhood, are at this time taking place in consequence of them,
 and which they must continue to produce while they are permitted to
 exist, I feel that a collective detail of the evidence calculated to
 remove them is much needed, and that, being sensible of this, it
 becomes a duty incumbent upon myself to endeavour to supply so
 important a desideratum.

 In making this attempt, I have been desirous of avoiding any
 unnecessary delay, and have therefore, perhaps, been obliged to collect
 facts, and to deduce arguments from them, with a degree of haste,
 which, while it must have occasioned many imperfections in the
 execution of my design, will, I trust, be admitted as some apology for
 such defects: I am willing, however, to hope that they will not be
 found of sufficient magnitude materially to interfere with the useful
 tendency of the estimate.

 The works of those writers whom I have consulted, and whose authority I
 have quoted in support of the efficacy of Vaccination, are familiar to
 the Medical Profession, and, with scarcely an exception I believe, its
 members have drawn the same satisfactory conclusion from the facts
 which are detailed in them. But as these works, are, for the most part,
 strictly professional, they have not come before the public in general,
 who have not, in consequence, had equal opportunities of convincing
 themselves of the true value of Vaccination. It is, however, manifestly
 more important, in proportion as their relative number is greater, that
 the latter should be convinced of this, than the former only. The
 present estimate, therefore, is more particularly intended to satisfy
 the doubts, and to remove the apprehensions of the community at large;
 though I trust, should I in any degree have succeeded in the attempt,
 it may also be read by my professional brethren not without some
 portion of satisfaction and of approbation.

 But, after all, should my object in endeavouring to convince the more
 enlightened parts of the community, (from whom alone I can hope for a
 proper consideration of the evidence I have adduced,) be attained, much
 will yet remain to be done: and I have endeavoured to point out the
 necessity of a general co-operation, in order to give the fullest
 effect to the paramount capabilities of Vaccination.—Amongst the
 poorest and least informed classes of society, a written evidence of
 this description, can scarcely be expected either to gain access or to
 meet with the requisite consideration; and the ignorance, the
 prejudices, and the _apathy_, which have been found to exist in some of
 them, must therefore be overcome by other