304 THE WONDERFUL CENTURY. CHAP. XVIIL 



The same desire to do credit to the practice which 

 they believe to be so important leads to such imperfect 

 or erroneous statements, as to the vaccinated or unvacci- 

 nated condition of those who die of small-pox, as to ren- 

 der all statistics of this kind faulty and erroneous to so 

 serious an extent that they must be altogether rejected. 

 Whether a person dies of small-pox or of some other ill- 

 ness is a fact that is recorded with tolerable accuracy, 

 because the disease, in fatal cases, is among the most 

 easily recognized. Statistics of " small-pox mortality " 

 may, therefore, be accepted as reliable. But whether 

 the patient is registered as vaccinated or not vaccinated 

 usually depends on the visibility or non-visibility of vac- 

 cination-marks, either during the illness or after death, 

 both of which observations are liable to error, while the 

 latter entails a risk of infection which would justifiably 

 lead to its omission. And the admitted practice of many 

 doctors, to give vaccination the benefit of any doubt, en- 

 tirely vitiates all such statistics, except in those special 

 cases where large bodies of adults are systematically vac- 

 cinated or revaccinated. Hence, whenever the results 

 of these imperfect statistics are opposed to those of the 

 official records of small-pox mortality, the former must 

 be rejected. It is an absolute law of evidence, of statis- 

 tics, and of common sense that, when two kinds of evi- 

 dence contradict each other, that which can be proved 

 to be even partially incorrect or untrustworthy must be 



railway accidents, 1889. Supposing railway accidents and resulting 

 deaths were 3000 times as numerous as they are, should we be satis- 

 fied with the railway-companies' assurance that it was really of no 

 importance as compared with the benefits of railways ! And the 

 actual deaths from vaccination nre, certainly, much greater than the 

 officially admitted deaths used in the above calculation. 



