130 
Vaccination. 
[March, 
and renewed infliction, haphazard, of diseases, results in 
the reduction of smallpox ? It is often asserted that no one 
ever pretended that vaccination would abolish smallpox. 
^ i Snner H° llse °f Commons, in 1802, that he 
confidently expected the extension of the inoculation of the 
covvpox to do so, and in 1852 the Epidemiological Society, or 
lathei the late Dr. Seaton, assured the House of Lords that 
everybody was liable to smallpox unless vaccinated ” — a 
aidtum untiue both in what it asserts and what it implies. 
We have the means of testing the value of these predictions 
in our own country by the Death Register, which is suffi- 
ciently accurate for our purpose, since the year 1838. We 
find, then, from the Death Register for England and Wales, 
that between the years 1838 and 1853, while vaccination 
was voluntary, the annual smallpox mortality varied from 
2715 to 16,268; and between the years 1854 and 1872, with 
vaccination largely increased under compulsion, from 1320 
to 22,907. The variations in London for the same periods 
lespeCtively, were from 21 r to 3817, and from 156 to 7876. 
We have at hand the record, for the years 1855 to 1873) of 
smallpox moitality in Scotland, which in point of population 
is something like London turned out into the country. Here 
we find that for the. years 1855 to 1864, under voluntary 
vaccination, the variation was from 426 to 1741 ; and for 
the years 1865 to 1873, under compulsion, from i^’to 2448. 
. ^ se p ms difficult, in the face of these figures, to see value 
in vaccination as a prophylactic. 
But we have another witness to call in the Reports of the 
French Academy of Medicine, which collect from the several 
Departments of Fiance an account not only of the deaths 
by smallpox, but also of the cases occurring year by year. 
Ihese Reports have been carefully examined and collated 
for the years 1865, 1866, and 1867, and each tells the same 
tale. Iheie is no direct compulsion on this subject in 
Fiance, and the greatest diversity of practice exists in the 
several Departments. Thus, the whole country being divided 
into two groups of Departments, viz., those in which the 
proportions of vaccinations to births reach 50 per cent 
(averaging 7 7 P ei cent) and those in which the proportion is 
less (averaging 35 per cent), we find that for the former 
group the cases were (in proportion to 10,000 births), in i86q 
569 as compared with 222 for the latter, less vaccinated 
gioup. In 1866 the corresponding record is 400 to 130 ; and 
in 1867, 254 to 83. Here we have surely a clear evidence 
that the extension of vaccination does not necessitate a 
diminution of smallpox. 
