CHAP. xvin. VACCINATION A DELUSION. 289 



identity of the vaccinated and the unvaccinated, except 

 on the one point of vaccination. The Commissioners 

 say : " Those, therefore, who are selected as being vac- 

 cinated persons might just as well be so many persons 

 chosen at random out of the total number attacked. So 

 far as any connection with the incidence of, or the mor- 

 tality from, small-pox is concerned, the choice of persons 

 might as well have been made according to the color of 

 the clothes they wore" ("Final Report," par. 213). But 

 there are tables in the Reports showing that about one- 

 seventh of all small-pox deaths occur in the first six 

 months of life, and by far the larger part of this mor- 

 tality occurs in the first three months. The age of vac- 

 cination varies actually from three to twelve months, 

 and many children have their vaccination specially de- 

 layed on account of ill-health, so that the " unvacci- 

 nated " always include a large proportion of those who, 

 merely because they are infants, supply a much larger 

 proportion of deaths from small-pox than at any other 

 age. Yet the Commissioners say the unvaccinated 

 might as well be chosen at random, or by the color of 

 their clothes so far as any liability to small-pox is con- 

 cerned. One stands amazed at the hardihood of a re- 

 sponsible body of presumably sensible and truth-seeking 

 men who can deliberately record as a fact what is so ob- 

 viously untrue. 



Hardly less important is it that the bulk of the unvac- 

 cinated, those who escape the vaccination officers, are the 

 very poor, and the nomad population of the country 

 tramps, beggars, and criminals, the occupants of the 

 tenement-houses and slums of our great cities, who, 

 being all weekly tenants, are continually changing their 



