240 THE WONDERFUL CENTURY. CHAP. xvm. 



is due to the fact of vaccination or the absence of it. 

 The following are a few of the figures as to this point 

 given in the Reports of the Royal Commission : 



DEATH RATE DEATH RATE 



AUTHORITY. OP OP 



VACCINATED. ONVACCINATED. 



Dr. Gay ton, in 3d Report (Table B, p. 245), 7.45 43 



Dr. Barry (Table F, p. 249), . . . 8.1 32.7 

 Sir John Simon (1st Report, p. 74) . to 12| 14 to 60 



Mr. Sweeting, M.R.C.S. (2d Report, p. 119), 8.92 46.08 



Now an immense body of statistics of the last century 

 compiled by disinterested persons who had no interest to 

 serve by making the severity of small-pox large or small, 

 gives an average of from 14 to 18 per cent. 1 as the pro- 

 portion of small-pox deaths to cases; and we naturally 

 ask, How is it that, with so much better sanitary condi- 

 tions and greatly improved treatment, nearly half the 

 unvaccinated patients die, while in the last century less 

 than one-fifth died ? Many of the supporters of vaccina- 

 tion, such as Dr. Gayton (2d Report, p. 1856), have no 

 explanation to offer. Others, such as Dr. Whitelegge 

 (6th Report, p. 533), believe that small-pox becomes 

 more virulent periodically, and that one of its maxima 

 of virulence caused the great epidemic of 1870-72, 

 which, after more than half a century of vaccination, 

 equalled some of the worst epidemics of the pre-vaccina- 

 tion period. 



It is, however, a most suggestive fact that, consider- 

 ing small-pox mortality per se, without reference to vac- 

 cination the records of which are, as have been shown, 

 utterly untrustworthy we find the case-mortality to 



1 See Table J, p. 201, 3d Report, and the Minority Report of the 

 Roy. Comm., pp. 176-77. 



