262 THE WONDERFUL CENTURY. CHAP. xvm. 



vaccination and the decrease of small-pox, there is a very 

 clear relation between it and the decrease in the general 

 mortality. This is necessarily shown on a much smaller 

 vertical scale to bring it into the diagram. If it were 

 on the same scale as the small-pox line, its downward 

 slope would be four times as rapid as it is. The decrease 

 in .the century is from about 27,000 to 15,000 per mil- 

 lion, and, with the exception of the period of the Na- 

 poleonic wars, the improvement is nearly continuous 

 throughout. There has evidently been a great and con- 

 tinuous improvement in healthy conditions of life in 

 Sweden, as in our own country and probably in all other 

 European nations, and this improvement, or some special 

 portion of it, must have acted powerfully on small-pox 

 to cause the enormous diminution of the disease down to 

 1812, with which, as we have seen, vaccination could 

 have had nothing to do. The only thing that vaccina- 

 tion seems to have done is to have acted as a check to 

 this diminution, since it is otherwise impossible to ex- 

 plain the complete cessation of improvement as the 

 operation became more general; and this is more espe- 

 cially the case in view of the fact that the general death- 

 rate has continued to decrease at almost the same rate 

 down to the present day! 



The enormous small-pox mortality in Stockholm has 

 been explained as the result of very deficient vaccina- 

 tion; but the Swedish Board of Health states that this 

 deficiency was more apparent than real, first, because 25 

 per cent, of the children born in Stockholm die before 

 completing their first year, and also because of neglect 

 to report private vaccinations, so that " the low figures 

 for Stockholm depend more on the cases of vaccina- 



