The anti-vaccination fanatics should study the scene just now presented
at Madras. The city has been visited by an epidemic -of small-pox, falling chiefly upon unvaccinated children, and the death-rate for a whole year has risen to 85 per 1,000, four times -the English rate. This is exclusive of the large per-centage of per- sons deformed, weakened, or made blind for life, the latterinfliction being a frequent consequence of Indian small-pox. The natives submit quietly, holding that the goddess of the disease is angry; but they do not like to see their children die, and the local Council has been able to pass an Act making vaccination coin- pulsoiy. The disease will, therefore, be quelled, probably for ever, as in India the families which have submitted to vaccination do
not recur to the ancient system. If they survive, that is proof that the goddess of small-pox, who is quite separate, and has rites of her own, is either pacified or defeated, and they adhere to the new protection, which, coming from the cow, is not without a divine claim of its own.
Previous page
