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evil consequences which are said to flow from it, have adopted
two lines of attack. They have asserted that evidence of its
mischievous influence is to be traced in an increase in the number
of deaths from certain specified diseases, corresponding with a
spread of the practice of vaccination, of which increase vaccination
was, they alleged, really the cause. They have further insisted
that evidence of the evil effects it produces is furnished by an
examination of particular cases in which it has been found that
injury or death has resulted from the operation.
We shall examine in the first place the contention, that the
records of mortality, show an increase in the deaths from certain
diseases during periods of extensive vaccination, when compared
with those when the practice was less in use, and that it may be
fairly inferred, from this comparison, that vaccination was the
cause of that increase.
It is to be observed, that the diseases selected for such a
comparison by the opponents of vaccination have not always been
the same. In 1877, a return was obtained by an Order of the
House of Commons, showing the deaths from 14 diseases at three
periods, viz., 1847-1853, 1864-1867, 1868 to 1875; these periods
having been regarded as distinguished from one another by a
progressive advance in the number of vaccinated persons,
especially children. The diseases were, Tabes Mesenterica,
Diarrhoea, Bronchitis, Pyaemia, Skin Disease, Syphilis, Convulsions,
Cholera, Diphtheria, Pneumonia, Atrophy and Debility,
Whooping Cough, Erysipelas, Scrofula.
The first six of theses diseases showed an increasing, the
next four a decreasing, mortality, whilst the remaining four
exhibited an irregular mortality, there being in three cases an
increase in the second period, and a decrease in the third, and in
another case a decrease in the second, but a slight increase in the
third, when, however, the mortality was not so high as in the
first period. When all the diseases were taken together, there