CHAP. xvni. VACCINATION A DELUSION. 229 



ing families. And we may be sure that these acknowl- 

 edged deaths are only a small portion of what have really 

 occurred, since the numbers have increased considerably 

 in the later period, during which more attention has been 

 given to such deaths and more inquests held. It is cer- 

 tain that for every such death acknowledged by the 

 medical man concerned, many are concealed under the 

 easy method of stating some of the later symptoms as the 

 cause of death. Thus, Mr. Henry May, Me'dical Officer 

 of Health, candidly states as follows: "In certificates 

 given by us voluntarily, and to which the public have 

 access, it is scarcely to be expected that a medical man 

 will give opinions which may tell against or reflect upon 

 himself in any way. In such cases he will most likely 

 tell the truth, but not the whole truth, and assign some 

 prominent symptom of the disease as the cause of death. 

 As instances of cases which may tell against the medical 

 man himself, I will mention erysipelas from vaccination, 

 and puerperal fever. A death from the first cause 

 occurred not long ago in my practice; and although I 

 had not vaccinated the child, yet, in my desire to pre- 

 serve vaccination from reproach, I omitted all mention 

 of it from my certificate of death." (See Birmingham 

 Medical Review, vol. iii. pp. 34, 35.) That such sup- 

 pressio veri is no new thing, but has been going on dur- 

 ing the whole period of vaccination, is rendered probable 

 by a statement in the Medical Observer of 1810, by Dr. 

 Maclean. He says: "Very few deaths from cow-pox 

 appear in the Bills of Mortality, owing to the means 

 which have been used to suppress a knowledge of them. 

 Neither were deaths, diseases, and failures transmitted 

 in great abundance from the country, not because they 



