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226
1911]
ten was one half. Surely that of itself is an extremely significant circumstance,
even if it stood alone, pointing in the direction of the effectiveness of
vaccination in preventing death from the disease."
Modification of Small-Pox by Vaccination.
"Then inquiries were made into the numbers of vaccinated and unvaccinated
persons who took the disease, to see how far it modified the disease and
rendered it less dangerous. What was the result? In those six towns, taken
together, amongst unvaccinated persons the deaths were 35 per cent.; in the
class of vaccinated persons the fatality was 5 per cent. only. That is taking
the vaccinated of all the towns and comparing them with the unvaccinated
class. But, if vaccination be most effective nearer to the time of the operation,
the contrast should be still more striking in those under 10 years of age. Take
then, the children from one to 10 in all those towns put together, and we have
the following results: Vaccinated 570 attacks, lti deaths, or 2'8 per cent.;
unvaccinated—1,235 attacks, 375 deaths, or 303 per cent.; and that is putting
the doubtful cases with the vaccinated. If you eliminated the doubtful cases
occuring in children, in London alone, you would reduce the 2"8 to 1"8 per
cent. What of the type of the disease ? The severe type of the disease leaves
behind it consequences which a man may have bitterly to regret during the
whole of his life. We find in those very same classes, divided on the
hypothesis of those who deny the efficacy of vaccination, according to mere
chance, that of those in the vaccinated class about 82 per cent, take the disease
mildly, and 17 per cent, severely; while in the unvaccinated class it is precisely
the reverse, and the severe cases are 82 per cent, and the mild cases 17 per
cent. We tried to ascertain the relative conditions of the fatality of the
disease according as there was evidence of more or less efficient vaccination.
There again we found that the more efficient the vaccination the less the
fatality, and the less severe the type of disease; the less the evidence of
efficient vaccination, the greater the fatality and the more severe the type of
the disease. Is it not difficult for any human reason to get over a collection of facts
such as those, and all th* more when we find this is not only the result ascertained by
combining the cases in all those different towns, but that the same phenomenon is
observed if you deal with the case of each town separately, and if you deal with the
separate districts of a town ? Such facts as these should be pointedly called to public
attention. Yet they are only a small part of the case. It would be impossible to
resist the case in favour of the efficacy of vaccination if there were no other facts, but
I could mention many other facts drawn not only from our own country but other
countries also."