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Mainly, however, Dr. Buchanan limits the scope of his further
enquiry on the subject, to the mortality from small-pox among
children under the age of ten years, for the sufficient reason that
the limit embraces the period within which vaccination has been
efficiently compulsory.
The population of London under ten was 916,784, on Census
night, 1881, of whom, in round numbers, 55,000 were unvaccinated
and 861,000 were vaccinated. In 1881 some 782 small-pox
deaths occurred among the 55,000 unvaccinated, as against 125
among the vaccinated. "Upon equal numbers of the two classes,
therefore, the mortality from small-pox among the unvaccinated
was about a hundredfold the mortality from small-pox among the
vaccinated. This degree of protection was given to children under
ten, by the average current vaccination of London."*
"If the London children under ten who were unvaccinated, had
had the protection which the current vaccination gives, not 782
of them, but at the outside nine, would have died of small-pox
during the year.
"If the 861,000 vaccinated children had died at the rate of
the 55,000 unvaccinated, we should not now be considering 125
small-pox deaths, and how can they be reduced, but we should be
* "The power of a thorough vaccination to protect against death from smallpox,"
(it is stated), "is at least ten times greater than the power of much that
passes under the name of vaccination."