272 THE WONDERFUL CENTURY. CHAP. xvm. 



The first diagram (No. VIII.) shows in the upper part, 

 by a dotted line, the total vaccinations, public and pri- 

 vate, since 1850. * The middle line shows the mortality 

 per million living from the chief zymotic diseases 

 fevers, measles, whooping-cough, and diphtheria while 

 the lower line gives the small-pox mortality. "We no- 

 tice here a high mortality from zymotics and from small- 

 pox epidemics, during the whole period of nearly com- 

 plete vaccination from 1854 to 1873. Then commenced 

 the movement against vaccination, owing to its proved 

 uselessness in the great epidemic, when Leicester had a 

 very much higher small-pox mortality than London, 

 which has resulted in a continuous decline, especially 

 rapid for the last fifteen years, till it is now reduced to 

 almost nothing. For that period, not only has small- 

 pox mortality been continuously very low, but the 

 zymotic diseases have also regularly declined to a lower 

 amount than has ever been known before. 



The second diagram (No. IX.) is even more impor- 

 tant, as showing the influence of vaccination in increas- 

 ing both the infantile and the total death-rates to an 

 extent which even the strongest opponents of that 

 operation had not thought possible. There are four solid 

 lines on the diagram showing respectively, in five-year 

 averages from 1838-42 to 1890-95, (1) the total death- 

 rate per 1000 living, (2) the infant death-rate under 

 five years, (3) the same under one year, and (4), the 

 lowest of all, the small-pox death-rate under five 

 years. 



1 From 1850 to 1873 the private vaccinations have been estimated 

 according to their proportion of the whole since they have been 

 officially recorded. 



