484 Chapter XV 



Of the data collected amongst the English troops in South Africa, 

 Wright considers that those which were collected during the siege 

 of Ladysmith were the most exact, on account of the facility with 

 which it was possible to study and register all the cases of typhoid 

 fever under these conditions of complete isolation. Now it has been 

 recognised that, amongst the vaccinated soldiers and officers, there 

 occurred scarcely one-eighth as many cases of typhoid fever as 

 occurred amongst the unvaccinated (1,499 cases in 10,529 unvac- 

 cinated, and 35 cases in 1,705 vaccinated). The mortality amongst 

 [507] the vaccinated was also very much lower. The difference to the 

 credit of the vaccinations should in reality be even greater, for 

 amongst the unvaccinated are counted many persons who having 

 already had an attack of typhoid fever were not submitted to 

 vaccination. 



The testimony of the majority of the medical men who followed 

 the results of Wright's method closely is also favourable to the 

 vaccinations. Thus Henry Cayley 1 reports that the staff of a Scotch 

 Hospital of the Red Cross, almost all of whom (57 persons out of 61) 

 had received two vaccinal inoculations, escaped typhoid fever, in 

 spite of the numerous opportunities afforded for the contraction 

 of the disease. This very favourable example is also instructive 

 in that it testifies to the value of two consecutive vaccinations. In 

 many other cases where one has had to be satisfied with a single 

 protective inoculation the results were less brilliant. According to 

 Howard Tooth, who made his observations at Bloemfontein, the 

 vaccinations according to Wright's method must be regarded as 

 very useful. 



Outside South Africa this method has been employed on a 

 fairly large number of persons in British India, in Egypt, and 

 in Cyprus. According to the earlier statements from India the 

 incidence amongst the vaccinated persons was one-third that of 

 the . unvaccinated. The most recent statistics 2 show still more 

 favourable results. Thus at Meerut the incidence amongst vaccinated 

 persons from Oct. 1899 to Oct. 1900 was one-eleventh that of the un- 

 vaccinated (2 cases of typhoid fever in 360 vaccinated, and 11 cases 

 of the same disease in 179 unvaccinated) : the mortality (one case 

 amongst the former, six amongst the latter) was less than one-twelfth 

 that of the unvaccinated. 



1 Brit. Med. Journ., London, 1901, Vol. I, p. 84. 



2 Lancet, London, 1901, Vol. I, p. 399. 



