278 THE WONDERFUL CENTURY. CHAP. xvm. 



attended thoroughly to these matters, and Gloucester 

 wholly neglected them, that the one suffered so little and 

 the other so much in the recent epidemic. On this sub- 

 ject every enquirer should read the summary of the facts 

 given in the Minority Report, par. 261. 



To return to the Majority Report. Its references to 

 Leicester are scattered over 80 pages, referring sepa- 

 rately to the hospital staff, and the relations of vacci- 

 nated and unvaccinated to small-pox; while in only a 

 few paragraphs (par. 480-486) do they deal with the 

 main question and the results of the system of isolation 

 adopted. These results they endeavor to minimize by 

 declaring that the disease was remarkably " slight in its 

 fatality," yet they end by admitting that " the experi- 

 ence of Leicester affords cogent evidence that the vigi- 

 lant and prompt application of isolation ... is a most 

 powerful agent in limiting the spread of small-pox." A 

 little further on (par. 500) they say, when discussing 

 this very point how far sanitation may be relied on in 

 place of vaccination " The experiment has never been 

 tried." Surely a town of 180,000 inhabitants which 

 has neglected vaccination for twenty years, is an experi- 

 ment. But a little further on we see the reason of this 

 refusal to consider Leicester a test experiment. Par. 

 502 begins thus: " The question we are now discussing 

 must, of course, be argued on the hypothesis that vacci- 

 nation affords protection against small-pox." What an 

 amazing basis of argument for a Commission supposed 

 to be enquiring into this very point! They then con- 

 tinue: "Who can possibly say that if the disease once 

 entered a town the population of which was entirely or 

 almost entirely unprotected, it would not spread with a 



