( 222 ) 
[April, 
ANALYSES OF BOOKS. 
The Story of a Great Delusion in a Series of Matter-of-fact 
Chapters. By W. White. London : E. W. Allen. 
We have here a closely-printed volume of close upon 600 pages 
— not including a copious index — in opposition to vaccination. 
As might be expedted the author makes some good points, not a 
few bad ones, and introduces much matter of doubtful relevance. 
He is fairly successful in showing that the statements popularly 
circulated concerning the former ravages of smallpox are over- 
drawn. But, like many of the anti-vaccinators, he forgets that 
the public horror of smallpox is not based upon the death-rate 
only. No statistics show the number of persons blinded by that 
disease — a result worse than death both for the individual and 
the community. Nor is disfigurement a mere sentimental evil. 
Let a pock-marked and a non-pock-marked person apply for any 
situation or appointment, the odds are heavily against the former. 
Hence the contention that the years of greatest smallpox mor- 
tality are the years of least total mortality, if true, is of exceed- 
ingly little moment. 
Mr. White has the best of the argument when he shows that 
the introduction of vaccination coincided with a temporary 
decline of smallpox in the early part of the present century, and 
that it hence obtained credit for a result which had set in before 
Jenner’s discovery. In fabt, if we consider how small a propor- 
tion of the population was vaccinated up to the year 1830, we 
cannot ascribe the improvement to this operation without credit- 
ing it with a vicarious influence of great power. The author 
further raises the question, very pertinently, Which is the true 
vaccine matter ? Is it the original idiopathic cow-pox or horse- 
grease, cow-pox or unmodified horse-grease, or smallpox refined 
by being passed through the cow ? All these have been in use 
more or less at different places and times, and have been trans- 
mitted from one human patient to another. Hence the question 
is not unnaturally put by the sceptical, Which of all these is the 
real safeguard, or are they all efficacious ? 
But Mr. White’s pleas are not by any means all equally happy. 
Thus he quotes approvingly from Mr. J. Gibbs the following- 
passage : — “ Cannot they who believe in vaccination protedt 
themselves ? Nobody seeks to hinder them. ... In their 
anxiety to coerce others compulsory vaccinationists demonstrate 
