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this inquiry has been thoroughly well known, and that active
organisations and zealous individuals were at work, searching out
cases in which the results of vaccination have been abnormal, with
a view to bring them under our notice, and that some of those
which we were asked to investigate turned out to be of a trifling
or unsubstantial nature, we think we are able to form a fairly
accurate estimate of the amount of injury which can be plausibly
attributed to vaccination. A consideration of all the circumstances
has led us to the conclusion that, as regards the non-fatal cases
with which we are now dealing, serious injury cannot have resulted
in any considerable number of cases.
An examination of the analysis of the fatal maladies
connected with vaccination during the period 1886 to 1891, made
by Dr. Ogle, shows that Erysipelas is credited with almost onehalf
of the total number of deaths. To these a considerable
number is to be added, where inflamed arms occurred, but in
which the disease did not receive the name of Erysipelas, though
it was probably allied to it. Next in number comes the class,
which includes Pyaemia, Septicaemia, and Blood Poisoning. If
this class be added to cases of Erysipelas, and maladies allied to
it, they account altogether for two-thirds of the cases in which the
cause of death has been connected with vaccination. An examination
of the particulars of the cases of alleged deaths and injury
from vaccination, to which our attention has been called during
the last six years, shows that the death or injury has been
attributed in the great majority of cases to one or other of these
diseases, and chiefly to Erysipelas.
It must not be forgotten that the introduction into the system
of even a mild virus, however carefully performed, is necessarily
attended by the production of local inflammation and of febrile
llness. If these results did not in some measure follow, the
practice would probably fail in its protective influence. As a rule,
the inflammation and illness are of a trifling character; in
exceptional cases, however, they may exhibit more severity, and,