264 THE WONDERFUL CENTURY. 



Pall Mall Gazette (May 24, 1871): " Prussia is the coun- 

 try where revaccination is most generally practised, the 

 law making the precaution obligatory on every person, 

 and the authorities conscientiously watching over its 

 performance. As a natural result, cases of small-pox 

 are rare." Never was there a more glaring untruth 

 than this last statement. It is true that revaccination 

 was enforced in public schools and other institutions, 

 and most rigidly in the Army,so that a very large pro- 

 portion of the adult male population must have been re- 

 vaccinated; but, instead of cases of small-pox being rare, 

 there had been for the twenty-four years preceding 1871 

 a much greater small-pox mortality in Prussia than in 

 England; the annual average being 248 per million for 

 the former and only 210 for the latter. A comparison 

 of the two diagrams shows the difference at a glance. 

 English small-pox only once reached 400 per million (in 

 1852), while in Prussia it four times exceeded that 

 amount. And immediately after the words above 

 quoted were written, the great epidemic of 1871-72 

 caused a mortality in revaccinated Prussia more than 

 double that of England. Now, after these facts have 

 been persistently made known by the anti-vaccinators, 

 the amount of vaccination in Prussia before 1871 is 

 depreciated, and Dr. A. F. Hopkirk actually classes it 

 among countries " without compulsory vaccination." 

 (See table and diagram opposite p. 238 in the 2d Re- 

 port.) 



In the city of Berlin we have indicated two epidemics, 

 that in 1864, with a death-rate a little under 1000 per 

 million, while that in 1871 rose to 6150 per million, or 

 considerably more than twice as much as that of London 



