238 THE WONDERFUL CENTURY. CHAP.XVIH. 



prognostic and a statistic point of view, it is be.tter, and, 

 I think, necessary, to class them as un vaccinated " (Dr. 

 Gayton's Report for the Homerton Hospital for 

 1871-72-73). 



The result of this method, which is certainly very 

 general though not universal, is such a falsification of 

 the real facts as to render them worthless for statistical 

 purposes. It is stated by so high an authority as Sir 

 James Paget, in his lectures on Surgical Pathology, that 

 " cicatrices may in time wear out " ; while the Vaccina- 

 tion Committee of the Epidemiological Society, in its 

 Report for 1885-86, admitted that " not every cicatrice 

 will permanently exist." Even more important is the 

 fact that in confluent small-pox the cicatrices are hid- 

 den, and large numbers of admissions to the hospitals are 

 in the later stages of the disease. Dr. Russell, in his 

 Glasgow Report (1871-72, p. 25), observes, " Sometimes 

 persons were said to be vaccinated, but no marks could 

 be seen, very frequently because of the abundance of the 

 eruption. In some of those cases which recovered, an 

 inspection before dismission discovered vaccine marks, 

 sometimes very good." 



In many cases private enquiry has detected errors of 

 this kind. In the Second Report of the Commission, 

 pp. 219-20, a witness declared that out of six persons 

 who died of srnall-pox and were reported by the medical 

 officer of the Union to have been unvaccinated, five were 

 found to have been vaccinated: one being a child who 

 had been vaccinated by the very person who made the 

 report, and another a man who had been twice revacci- 

 nated in tMe militia (Q. 6730-42). One other case may 

 be given. In October, 1883, three unvaccinated chil- 



