THE WONDERFUL CENTURY. CHAP. xvm. 



In a speech in Parliament in defence of vaccination, 

 Sir Lyon Playfair gave 4000 per million as the average 

 London death-rate by small-pox before vaccination a 

 number nearly double that of the last twenty years of the 

 century, which alone affords a fair comparison. But 

 far more amazing is the statement by the late Dr. W. B. 

 Carpenter, in a letter to the Spectator of April, 1881, 

 that " a hundred years ago the small-pox mortality of 

 London alone, with its then population of under a mil- 

 lion, was often greater in a six months' epidemic than 

 that of the twenty millions of England and AVales now 

 is in any whole year." The facts, well known to every 

 enquirer, are that the very highest small-pox mor- 

 tality in the last century in a year was 3992 in 1772, 

 while in 1871 it was 7912 in London, or more than 

 double; and in the same year, in England and Wales, it 

 was 23 ; 000. This amazing and almost incredible mis- 

 statement was pointed out and acknowledged privately, 

 but never withdrawn publicly ! 



The late Mr. Ernest Hart, a medical man, editor of the 

 British Medical Journal, and a great authority on sani- 

 tation, in his work entitled " The Truth about Vaccina- 

 tion," surpassed even Dr. Carpenter in the monstrosity 

 of his errors. At page 35 of the first edition (1880), 

 he stated that in the forty years 1728-57 and 1771-80, 

 the average annual small-pox mortality of London was 

 about 18,000 per million living. The actual average 

 mortality, from the tables given in the Second Report of 

 the Royal Commission, page 290, was a little over 2000, 

 the worst periods having been chosen; and taking the 

 lowest estimates of the population at the time, the mor- 

 tality per million would have been under 3000. This 



