286 THE WONDERFUL CENTURY. CHAP. xvm. 



It is thus completely demonstrated that all the state- 

 ments by which the public has been gulled for so many 

 years, as to the almost complete immunity of the re vacci- 

 nated Army and Navy, are absolutely false. It is all 

 what Americans call " bluff." There is no immunity. 

 They have no protection. When exposed to infection, 

 they do suffer just as much as other populations, or even 

 more. In the whole of the nineteen years 1878-96, 

 inclusive, unvaccinated Leicester had so few small-pox 

 deaths that the Registrar-General represents the average 

 by the decimal 0.01 per thousand population, equal to 

 ten per million, while for the twelve years 1878-89 

 there was less than one death per annum! Here we 

 have real immunity, real protection; and it is obtained 

 by attending to sanitation and isolation, coupled with the 

 almost total neglect of vaccination. Neither Army nor 

 Navy can show any such results as this. In the whole 

 twenty-nine years tabulated in the Second Report the 

 Army had not one year without a small-pox death, while 

 the Navy never had more than three consecutive years 

 without a death, and only six years in the whole period. 



Now if ever there exists such a thing as a crucial test, 

 this of the Army and Navy, as compared with Ireland, 

 and especially with Leicester, affords such a test. The 

 populations concerned are hundreds of thousands; the 

 time extends to a generation; the statistical facts are 

 clear and indisputable; while the case of the Army has 

 been falsely alleged again and again to afford indisputa- 



large amount of calculation, because the Commissioners have given 

 the death rates per 10,000 strength of four separate forces Home, 

 Colonial, Indian, and Egyptian and have not given the figures for 

 the whole Army, so as to complete the table in the Second Report. 

 The figures for the Navy are obtained from the " Final Report," p. 88. 



