CHAP. xvm. VACCINATION A DELUSION. 255 



relation of small-pox to vaccination, we find proof of the 

 total inefficacy of that operation. 



Small-pox in Scotland and in Ireland. 



In their " Final Keport " the Commissioners give us 

 Tables of the death-rates from small-pox, measles, and 

 scarlet fever in Scotland and Ireland; and from these 

 Tables I have constructed my diagram (IV.), combining 

 the two latter diseases for simplicity, and including the 

 period of compulsory vaccination and accurate registra- 

 tion in both countries. 



The most interesting feature of this diagram is the 

 striking difference in the death-rates of the two coun- 

 tries: Scotland, the richer, more populous, and more 

 prosperous country having a much greater mortality, 

 both from the two zymotics and from small-pox than 

 poor, famine-stricken, depopulated Ireland. The maxi- 

 mum death-rate by the two zymotics in Scotland is con- 

 siderably more than double that in Ireland, and the 

 minimum is larger in the same proportion. In small- 

 pox the difference is also very large in the same direc- 

 tion, for although the death-rate during the great epi- 

 demic in 1872 was only one-fourth greater in Scotland, 

 yet as the epidemic there lasted three years, the total 

 death-rate for those years was nearly twice as great as 

 for the same period in Ireland, which, however, had a 

 small epidemic later on in 1878. Since 1883 small-pox 

 has been almost absent from both countries, as from 

 England; but taking the twenty years of repeated epi- 

 demics from 1864 to 1883, we find the average small- 

 pox death-rate of Scotland to be about 139, and that of 

 Ireland 85 per million, or considerably more than as 



