280 THE WONDERFUL CENTURY. CHAP. xvm. 



The Army and Navy as a Conclusive Test. 



In the Report of the Medical Officer of the Local 

 Government Board for 1884, it is alleged that, when an 

 adult is revaccinated, " he will receive the full measure 

 of protection that vaccination is capable of giving him." 

 In the same year the Medical Officer of the General Post 

 Office stated in a circular, "It is desirable, in order to 

 obtain full security, that the operation [vaccination] 

 should be repeated at a later period of life " ; and the 

 circular of the National Health Society, already referred 

 to, states that " soldiers who have been revaccinated can 

 live in cities intensely affected by small-pox without 

 themselves suffering to any appreciable degree from the 

 disease." Let us then see how far these official state- 

 ments are true or false. 



In their " Final Report " the Commissioners give the 

 statistics of small-pox mortality in the Army and Navy 

 from 1860 to 1894; and, although the latest order for 

 the vaccination of the whole force in the Navy was only 

 made in 1871, there can be no doubt that, practically, 

 the whole of the men had been revaccinated long before 

 that period; 1 but certainly since 1873 all without excep- 

 tion, both English and foreign, were revaccinated; and 

 in the Army every recruit has been revaccinated since 

 1860 (see 2d Report, Q. 3453, 3455; and for the Navy, 



rate, while vaccination is only alleged to be a contributory cause, 

 clearly visible in general results, but not to be detected in smaller 

 variations (see Fourth Report, Q. 17,513-17,744, or pp. 370 to 381). 

 Mr. Biggs' cross-examination in all occupies 110 pages of the 

 Report. 



1 It was introduced into the Navy in 1801, and in that year the 

 medical officers of the fleet presented Jenner with a special gold 

 medal ! 



