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the death-rates of later ages. At any rate there is evidence to disprove
the assertion that sanitation in the wider sense must affect
mortality at all ages equally.
Again, it has been fairly urged that, in order to ascertain
whether the shifting of the age incidence of fatal small-pox can
be fairly attributed to vaccination rather than to sanitary reforms,
it is desirable to institute a comparison between small-pox deaths
or death-rates at different ages and other comparable diseases
rather than with the deaths or death-rates from all diseases.
Dr. Ogle thinks that the zymotic diseases would be the better
ones to compare small-pox with, but he truly observes: "It is
impossible to make similar comparisons in the case of Scarlet
Fever or Measles, and diseases that only affect children. Fever
is the only one of the zymotic headings that you can take,
because it is the only one that affects all ages to any extent.
Fever is, therefore, the only one which it is possible to subject
to this kind of investigation."
Now, in regard to Typhus, which is not at the present time
responsible for many deaths under five years of age, we learn
that, comparing the earliest quinquennium which the RegistrarGeneral's
figures enable us to use with the quinquennium 1886-90,
a fall of 46.9 per cent. in the children's share, i.e., from 6.4 per
cent. to 3.4 per cent. For the same period in the case of Typhoid
Fever (even when the necessary correction for varying classification
in regard to remittent fever has been made) there is a fall
of 51.7 per cent, in the children's share, i.e., from 17.4 per cent.
to 8.4 per cent. For small-pox (even without any correction
for chicken-pox) there is a fall during the same period of the
children's share equal to 36.9 per cent., i.e., from 31.1 per cent.
to 19.6 per cent.
Not only then do we find that in certain other zymotic
diseases comparable with Small-Pox a shifting of age incidence of
the deaths so that the children's share is less and the adults' share