246 THE WONDERFUL CENTURY. CHAP xvm. 



Creighton, are given in the earlier portion of the dia- 

 gram from the figures given in his great work, " A His- 

 tory of Epidemics in Britain." As regards the line of 

 small-pox mortality, the diagram is the same as that 

 presented to the Royal Commission (3d Report, Dia- 

 gram J.), but it is carried back to an earlier date. 



Let us now examine the lowest line, showing the small- 

 pox death-rate. First taking the period from 1760 to 

 1800, we see, amid great fluctuations and some excep- 

 tional epidemics, a well-marked steady decline which, 

 though obscured by its great irregularity, amounts to a 

 difference of 1000 per million living. This decline con- 

 tinues, perhaps somewhat more rapidly, to 1820. From 

 that date to 1834 the decline is much less, and is hardly 

 perceptible. The period of Registration opens with the 

 great epidemic of 1838, and thenceforward to 1885 

 the decline is very slow indeed ; while, if we average the 

 great epidemic of 1871 with the preceding ten years, we 

 shall not be able to discover any decline at all. From 

 1886, however, there is a rather sudden 'decline to a 

 very low death-rate, which has continued to the present 

 time. Now it is alleged by advocates of vaccination, 

 and by the Commissioners in their Report, that the de- 

 cline from 1800 onward is due to vaccination, either 

 wholly or in great part, and that " the marked decline of 

 small-pox in the first quarter of the present century 

 affords substantial evidence in favor of the protective in- 

 fluence of vaccination." : This conclusion is not only 

 entirely unwarranted by the evidence on any accepted 

 methods of scientific reasoning, but it is disproved by 

 several important facts. In the first place the decline 

 1 Final Report of Roy. Cornm. p 20 (par. 85). 



