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146
from tabes mesenterica and scrofula per million births in
Leicester during the years 1883-87, as compared with the years
1863-67, was 25.8 per cent. A similar comparison for England
and Wales shows a per-centage of 26.8 per cent.
We do not find any facts to warrant the assertion that the
increased mortality from tabes mesenterica and scrofula, or any
part of it, was due to vaccination.
Without encumbering our report with the details relating to
Pyaemia, Bronchitis, Diarrhoea, and Skin Diseases, which are all
said to have increased owing to the mischievous influence of
vaccination, we may confidently say that there is no evidence to
justify the statement. It is, however, worth while pointing out
that comparing, as before, the period of 1883-87 with the period of
1863.67, the increase of deaths under one year of age from
Diarrhœa and Dysentery in Leicester was 4.2 per cent., whereas
in England and Wales it was 0.5 per cent. A similar comparison
in respect of Bronchitis shows the increase in Leicester to be 112.8
per cent., in England and Wales 73.3 per cent. It seems clear
that as regards general infantile mortality Leicester has not gained
by its avoidance of vaccination. Whilst in England and Wales
the mortality of children under one year of age had between the
periods selected for comparison decreased 7.5 per cent., in Leicester
the decrease was only 2.8 per cent.
Upon the whole, then, we think that the evidence is overwhelming
to show that, in the case of some of the diseases
referred to, vaccination cannot have produced any effect upon the
mortality from them, and that it has not in the case of any one
of them increased the mortality to a substantial, we might even
say an appreciable, extent.
When we pass to a consideration of the evidence that personal
injury or death has resulted from vaccination, the questions which
present themselves do not admit of the same simple solution as
those with which we have just been dealing. The cause of death,