THE CONQUEST OF DISEASE 



found that during a period in which the mortal- 

 ity from small-pox declined 72 per cent., the 

 mortality from measles had fallen only 9 per 

 cent, and that from whooping cough a little 

 more than 1 per cent. There has been scarcely 

 any diminution in the mortality from scarlet 

 fever, (a disease, the cause of which has not 

 yet been found) during the last one hundred 

 years. In the hospitals where small-pox is 

 treated physicians and nurses who have been 

 successfully vaccinated and revaccinated do 

 not contract the disease. Physicians and nurses 

 have no such immunity against other infectious 

 diseases. Medical men constitute a class which 

 is particularly well vaccinated: in England, 

 deaths among them from small-pox are 13 per 

 1,000,000 as against 73 per 1,000,000 of the 

 general population. In scarlet fever, against 

 which physicians have no special protection 

 the figures are reversed; 59 physicians per 

 1,000,000 die of that disease as against 16 per 

 1,000,000 of the general population. 



While small-pox has become a rare disease 

 in vaccinated countries this can not be said of 

 countries in which vaccination is neglected. 

 The Imperial Board of Health of Germany 

 collected information, and found that there 



96 



