i88i.] 
The Vaccination Question Reconsidered . 649 
majority was never asked. Since those days half a century 
has passed ; vaccination has been made imperative, so that 
the “ unprotected residuum ” has shrunk to about 3 per cent. 
More than this : re-vaccination at adolescence is now insisted 
upon. This was the case in Prussia as early as 1836, as we 
know from personal experience. But now Dr. Austin Flint, 
writing in the “ North American Review ” for June, considers 
re-vaccination every five years as advisable. What a prac- 
tical abandonment of Jenner’s original doctrine ! To return : 
in spite of this extended and repeated protection smallpox is 
openly and palpably more frequent now than it was in the 
earlier part of the century. Epidemic follows epidemic in 
quick succession, each, apparently, more rampant and more 
fatal than its predecessor. Thus the deaths from smallpox 
in London are given as — 
1851—60 7150 :: - 
l86l 70 8347 
1871—80 15543 
Each decennium thus far appears worse than the one fore- 
going. What is still more striking, the smallpox extends to 
an ever-increasing proportion of those who have been duly 
vaccinated. Thus the official “ Report of the Smallpox and 
Vaccination Hospital for 1866,” as quoted by Mr. Taylor, 
makes the following alarming confessions : — •“ The ratio of 
vaccinated cases to the whole admissions of smallpox patients 
has gone on progressively increasing ; thus — 
Sixteen years ending 1851 
Epidemic, 1851 — 2 
„ 1854—6 
» 1859—60 
Years ending 1866 
53*0 per cent. 
667 
7 1 ' 0 
78-0 
Dr. O. Cameron, M.P., whom Mr. Taylor calls “ the 
recognised champion of vaccination in the House of Com- 
mons,” states, in his article in the “ Fortnightly,” that the 
number of smallpox cases per million of vaccinated persons 
is greater now than in the beginning of the century, and 
that the death-rate in cases of smallpox after vaccination 
has risen from 175 per cent in 1819 to 9*2 per cent in the 
years 1870 to 1879, the increase of mortality being most 
remarkable in the best vaccinated class of cases. 
The “ Lancet ” (June 18th, 1881) accepts “the recent 
smallpox epidemic in London, so far as regards the death of 
VOL. III. (THIRD SERIES). 2 U 
