CHAP. xvni. VACCINATION A DELUSION. 241 



agree closely with that of the last century. Thus, the 

 figures given in the Keports of the Hampstead, Homer- 

 ton, and Deptf ord small-pox hospitals, at periods between 

 1876 and 1879, were, 19, 18.8, and 17 per cent, re- 

 spectively (3d Keport, p. 205). If we admit that only 

 the worst cases went to the hospitals, but also allow some- 

 thing for better treatment now, the result is quite ex- 

 plicable; whereas the other result, of a greatly increased 

 fatality in the unvaccinated so exactly balanced by an 

 alleged greatly diminished fatality in the vaccinated is 

 not explicable, especially when we remember that this 

 diminished fatality applies to all ages, and it is now 

 almost universally admitted that the alleged protective 

 influence of vaccination dies out in ten or twelve years. 

 These various opinions are really self -destructive. If 

 epidemic small-pox is now much more virulent than in 

 the last century as shown by the greater mortality of the 

 unvaccinated now than then, the greatly diminished or 

 almost vanishing effect of primary vaccination in adults 

 cannot possibly have reduced their fatality to one-fifth 

 or one-sixth of that of the other class. 



Again, it is admitted by many pro-vaccinist authori- 

 ties that the unvaccinated, as a rule, belong to the poorer 

 classes, while they also include most of the criminal 

 classes ; tramps, and generally the nomad population. 

 They also include all those children whose vaccination 

 has been deferred on account of weakness or of their 

 suffering from other diseases, as well as all those under 

 vaccination age. The unvaccinated as a class are there- 

 fore especially liable to zymotic disease of any kind, 

 small-pox included; and when, in addition to these causes 

 of a higher death-rate from small-pox, we take account 



