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Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3138, 19 July 1881, Page 2

An interesting illustration of the value of re-vaccination (says an English journal) i 3 afforded by a report just furnished, at the instance of the Local Government Board, by the chief medical officer of the Geoeral Post Office. This report relates to an average number of 10,504 persons permanently employed in the postal service in London, all of whom have been required to undergo revaccination on admission to the service, unless that operation bas been performed within seven yea: - s previously. Among these persons during the ten years 1870----1879 there has not been a single fatal

case of smallpox, and ia only ten instances have there been non fatal at' ic':s, all cf which were of a very fi%bt character. In the Telegraph De*:a;tment, where the enforcement of levaccination has been carried out n ith quire the same completeness, 12 <;a <es have occurred in the same period anc )g a staff averaging 1458 in number. _ '■if-.bt of these attacks were of persons wh\ tad not been re-vaccinated, and one pined fatal. The remaining four were o; .-e----vaccinated persons, who all perfectly recovered without pitting. This experience, like that of the nurses at the smallpox hospitals, seems to show that re-vaccinated persons enjoy absolute immunity from severe attacks of smallpox, and that their risk of catching that diseaee at all, even in its most modified form, is infinitesimal. It is much to be wished that this fact could be upprc-jiated by the classes among whom re-vaccination is most neglected and smallpox is cow spreading.