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138
When we find again that, both as regards the type of the
disease and the attack rate, the contrast is specially noticeable in
those under 10 years of age, and that the explanations proposed
are even less deserving of weight when applied to these phenomena
than when regarded as a reason for the difference in the
fatality of the disease in the two classes, the conclusion that
vaccination exercises an influence in relation to Small-Pox,
specially potent during the early years after the operation, to
which, as we have already indicated, other considerations point,
receives strong confirmation.
We see no reason for hesitating to adopt the conclusions to
which we should otherwise be led, or to doubt the accuracy of
the facts to which we have been adverting, on account of the
objection, even if it be well founded in fact, that the fatality
among the unvaccinated at the present day exceeds that
experienced before the era of vaccination. We have already
pointed out that in the statistics of modern times, with which we
have been dealing, the fatality among the unvaccinated varied
greatly, and it is by no means established that there were not as
great variations in the pre-vaccination days.
We have still to notice two other groups of facts bearing
upon the question. We have shown that there is evidence that
where vaccination has been most thorough, the protection appears
to have been greatest. It may be that on this point the force of
the evidence is less than on some of those just alluded to; nevertheless,
it cannot be left out of sight, or regarded as of no importance,
when we are seeking an answer to the question whether
vaccination has a protective influence, or is altogether ineffectual.
The fact that the re-vaccination of adults appears to place
them in so favourable a condition, as compared with the
unvaccinated—and that, too, even when they are subjected to
specially grave risk of contagion, and we take this to be established
as a fact—affords further confirmation of the conclusions