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94
In order to make the figures in the above table comparable
throughout, we are obliged to include with the deaths returned as
from Small-Pox those returned as from Chicken-Pox, the
Registrar-General not having distinguished between such returns
in his abstracts for the years 1838-1842 and 1847-1854.
In this connexion, however, the inclusion or exclusion of deaths
returned as from Chicken-Pox makes no material difference ; the
number of deaths at all ages so returned being but small, in comparison
with the deaths at all ages returned as from Small-Pox,
except as regards the years 1889, 1890, and 1891, when the
Small-Pox mortality was very small.
Had the number of deaths returned as from Chicken-Pox
been large enough to affect to any material extent the figures in
the table, we should have excluded these deaths so far as we
were able, though we think it possible and even probable that
some of them may have been mistaken cases of Small-Pox.
It is highly improbable that the number of such cases was considerable,
seeing that, since deaths from Chicken-Pox have been
separately recorded, the number of them has been small and
approximately the same, year by year, whether Small-Pox was
prevalent or not.
There exist no figures, comparable throughout the period
1838-1894, by which we can measure the extent to which, at one
time as compared with another, the practice of vaccination prevailed
in England and Wales in those years. That there has
been, speaking generally, during that period a large spread of
the practice is beyond doubt.
We have given an account of the legislation from time to time
enacted to this end, and we shall therefore merely recapitulate