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renders the type of the disease in the vaccinated less severe than
it would have been had they remained unvaccinated.
Small-pox differs greatly in the degree of its severity. It may
be an illness of a very serious character, entailing grave after
consequences, or it may be a comparatively trifling ailment. The
most severe forms of the disease have been termed malignant or
haemorrhagic. Next in severity comes the confluent type, which
is also of a very serious character. The mildest species of the
disease has been termed varioloid, or sometimes simply "mild."
Between the confluent and the mild or varioloid come in order of
severity the coherant and the discrete types.
Quite apart from the danger of a fatal termination to the
illness, it is obviously a matter of great importance to those who
suffer from the disease that its type should in their case be of a
mild rather than of a severe character, not merely because the
illness is in the one case trifling and in the other painful and
prolonged, but because evil consequences such as pitting of the
countenance often follows in the one case which in the other are
absent. It is important, then, to test the validity of the assertion
that vaccination has this beneficent influence, and that for two
reasons. If it can be established it would show, first, that
vaccination carries with it this distinct advantage independently
of the others we have been considering; and next, it would add
support to the view that vaccination has an influence upon the
disease of small-pox, a point which has been contested. Let us
inquire, then, what light the evidence throws upon the claims thus
advanced in favour of vaccination.
He divides the cases into "very mild," "discrete," " "severe
discrete," "confluent," and "haemorrhagic." The cases in the
latter class are very few in number, and it will be more convenient
to class them with the confluent cases.
The number of cases in which the type of disease was discriminated
was 2,353, of whom 1,944 were vaccinated or doubtful
and 409 unvaccinated.