CHAP, xviii. VACCINATION A DELUSION. 275 



growing conviction of its uselessness and its danger. 

 These facts strongly support the contention that vaccina- 

 tion, instead of saving thousands of infant lives, as has 

 been claimed, really destroys them by thousands, en- 

 tirely neutralizing that great reduction which was in 

 progress from the last century, and which the general 

 improvement in health would certainly have favored. 

 It may be admitted that the increasing employment of 

 women in factories is also a contributory cause of infant 

 mortality; but there is no proof that a less proportion 

 of women have been thus employed during the last 

 twenty years, while it is certain that there has been a 

 great diminution of vaccination, which is now admitted 

 to be a vera causa of infant mortality. 



Before leaving the case of Leicester it will be instruct- 

 ive to compare it with some other towns of which statis- 

 tics are available. And first, as to the great epidemic 

 of 1871-72 in Leicester and in Birmingham. Both 

 towns were then well vaccinated, and both suffered 

 severely by the epidemic. Thus: 



LEICESTER. BIRMINGHAM. 



Small-pox cases per 10.000 population, . 327 213 



deaths " " " '. 35 35 



But since then, Leicester has rejected vaccination to 

 such an extent that in 1894 it had only seven vaccina- 

 tions to ten thousand population, while Birmingham had 

 240, or more than thirty times as much, and the pro- 

 portion of its inhabitants who have been vaccinated is 

 probably less than half those of Birmingham. The 

 Commissioners themselves state that the disease was 

 brought into the town of Leicester on twelve separate 



