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17
Nation presented to the world a half-hearted vindication
of the discovery of Jenner, one of the greatest
benefactors of mankind, and an Englishman, at a time
when nearly every other civilised nation was celebrating
with eclat the centenary of the first operations of
vaccination.
No charge of undue haste can be preferred against
the Commission, which fact should lend additional
weight to the verdict arrived at, that vaccination does
materially reduce the liability to attack by, and
mortality from smallpox. The two Members of the
Commission who declined to sign the Report and
issued a "Dissent" thereto, do not controvert this
conclusion, which may therefore be held to be the
unanimous decision of the Commission. The whole
aim of the Dissent appears to be to show that
other factors besides vaccination have been at work in
the past to reduce the mortality from smallpox, and
that there are means, other than vaccination, on which
reliance may be placed to limit the spread of the
disease.
It may at once be admitted that sanitation has
had, and still has, a certaiu amount of influence in
checking the mortality from smallpox. That influence,
however, appears to be limited to the extent to which
it can affect the fatality* of the disease, and not to its
* By "mortality" is meant the ratio of deaths to population, and by
"fatality," the ratio of deaths to attacks. The mortality might diminish by
reason of the fewness of the attacks, although the fatality of the cases might