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247 out of 2,024. Of the unvaccinated of a similar age, 87 out
of 190, or 45.7 per cent., died.
It has been urged against these statistics that, even though
every effort were made to classify the cases correctly, the classification
was still open to error, inasmuch as persons might be
brought to the hospital with the eruption of confluent Small-Pox
upon them, which would prevent the marks even of efficient
vaccination being visible. It is true that this might be so in
some cases, but both Dr. Gayton and Mr. Sweeting assert that
it could have happened very rarely. We do not think that it
could make such a difference as to modify substantially the
contrast exhibited in the fatality amongst the vaccinated and
unvaccinated classes.
Inasmuch as the vaccinated class includes, both in the case
of Dr. Gayton's and Mr. Sweeting's tables, a considerable number
who, though said to be vaccinated, showed no marks, it may be
interesting to observe what was the fatality in that class when
dealt with separately. It contained in all probability a certain
proportion of unvaccinated persons. The fatality in this doubtful
class in Dr. Gayton's table was 27.1 per cent., being 352 out of
1,295. Eliminating these cases from the total number hitherto
treated as vaccinated, the result shown is a fatality of 7.4 per
cent., being 517 out of 6,939.
Dealing with Mr. Sweeting's statistics in the same manner,
we find the fatality in the doubtful class to be 33 per cent., being
88 out of 266, whilst in the vaccinated class, eliminating these
doubtful cases, it is 175 out of 1,960, or 8.9 per cent. It will
thus be seen that there is a somewhat striking correspondence in
the death-rate shown by this doubtful class in the two cases, and
that in each case that death-rate was considerably higher than the
fatality in the vaccinated, but considerably lower than that in the
unvaccinated class.
We proceed to consider the explanations of the contrast