CHAP. xvm. VACCINATION A DELUSION. 237 



And in the year 1893, for England and Wales, the 

 figures are (Annual Report, p. xi.): 



Smallpox. Vaccinated, ... 150 deaths. 

 Un vaccinated, . . . 253 " 

 No statement, . . . 1054 " 



Now such figures as these, even if those under the first 

 two headings were correct, are a perfect farce, and are 

 totally useless for any statistical purpose. Yet every 

 vaccination is officially recorded since 1873 private as 

 well as public vaccinations and it would not have been 

 difficult to trace almost every small-pox patient to his 

 place of birth, and to get the official record of his vac- 

 cination if it exists. As the medical advisers of the 

 Government have not done this, and give us instead par- 

 tial and local statistics, usually under no official sanction 

 and often demonstrably incorrect, every rule of evidence 

 and every dictate of common sense entitle us to reject 

 the fragmentary and unverified statements which they 

 put before us. Of the frequent untrustworthiness of 

 such statements it is necessary to give a few examples. 



In " Notes on the Small-pox Epidemic at Birken- 

 head," 1877 (p. 9), Dr. F. Vacher says: " Those entered 

 as not vaccinated were admittedly unvaccinated, or with- 

 out the faintest mark. The mere assertions of patients 

 or their friends that they were vaccinated counted for 

 nothing." Another medical official justifies this method 

 of making statistics, as follows: " I have always classed 

 those as ' unvaccinated/ when no scar, presumably aris- 

 ing from vaccination, could be discovered. Individuals 

 are constantly seen who state that they have ttfeen vacci- 

 nated, but upon whom no cicatrices can be traced. In a 



