292 THE WONDERFUL CENTURY. 



CHAP, xvm 



the proper sense of the term, only verbal statements by 

 various medical men; and they overlook or forget the 

 largest and only trustworthy body of statistics existing, 

 as to re vaccination that of the Army and ^"avy! " A 

 position of quite exceptional advantage!! " AVhen the 

 small-pox mortality of more than 200,000 men, all re- 

 vaccinated to the completest extent possible by the medi- 

 cal officials, shows no advantage whatever over the whole 

 comparable population of Ireland, and a quite excep- 

 tional disadvantage in comparison with almost unvacci- 

 nated Leicester! 1 There is only one charitable expla- 



some of them seeing as many as one thousand cases, I have never 

 personally known of more than one who has contracted the disease ; 

 but there are many writers who believe perfect immunity to be 

 extremely rare. In this connection attention may be called to the 

 exemption of certain persons who occupy the same room, and per- 

 haps bed, with the patients, and though sometimes never vaccinated, 

 altogether escape infection." 



And Mr. Wheeler shows that at Sheffield the hospital staff did suffer 

 from small-pox in a higher degree than other comparable popula- 

 tions (see 6th Report, Q. 19,907.) 



1 It is a common practice of vaccinists to quote the German Army 

 as a striking proof of the good effects of revaecination ; but as our 

 own Army is as well vaccinated as the Arm}' surgeons with unlimited 

 power can make it, it is unlikely that the Germans can do so very 

 much better. And there is some reason to think that their statistics 

 are less reliable than our own. Lieut.-Col. A. T. Y/intle, (late) R. A., 

 has published in the Vaccination Inquirer extracts from a letter 

 from Germany stating, on the authority of a German officer, that the 

 Army statistics of small-pox are utterly unreliable. It is said to be 

 the rule for Army surgeons to enter small-pox cases as skin-disease 

 or some other "appropriate illness," while large numbers of small- 

 pox deaths are entered as "sent away elsewhere." We had better 

 therefore be content with our own Army and Navy statistics, though 

 even here there is some concealment. In 1860 Mr. Duncombe, M. P. , 

 moved for a return of the disaster at Shorncliffe Camp, where, it was 

 alleged, thirty recruits were vaccinated, and six died of the results, 

 but the return was refused. A letter in the Lancet of July 7, 1860, 



