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confronted with an additional 12,000 and more deaths from smallpox,
occurring during the year in the London population under
ten years of age."
This "great saving of children from death by small-pox can
only have been due to vaccination, and largely to the operation of
vaccination law."*
It must be remembered, moreover, that the mortality from
small-pox in vaccinated children, small though it be, is unduly
high, for the reason, doubtless, that so much of the vaccination
which passes current is imperfect; there still being, as we are
informed, medical men who systematically evade the spirit of the
law, and disregard the teachings of experience, as summed up in
instructions issued by the Board for the guidance of public
vaccinators. A prime condition of vaccination, "successful"
from the official standpoint, is the production of four typical
vesicles;, but we are told that there is a "form of private
vaccination that offers itself in competition with public vaccination,
and which parades its inefficiency as a reason for its
acceptance by ignorant people. Its professors say to young
mothers, 'Do you come to me and I won't hurt your baby;
I'll make only one place on its arm, not four, as those public
vaccinators do.'" It is not surprising, therefore, to learn that
although vaccination is done in about equal proportions by public
vaccinators and private practitioners, the proportion of deaths
from small-pox, among children under ten, is far greater among
the patients of private practitioners than among children taken
to public vaccinators; and this despite reasons, to which
Dr. Buchanan refers, which might fairly lead us to expect a
different result, were it not for the admittedly superior average
quality of public vaccination.
* Primary vaccination only is compulsory in England. In Germany revaccination,
ever since 1874, has been compulsory' during the ''school period"
of childrens' lives; the result being that "during the ten years last past
Germany has not only experienced smaller death rates by small-pox than
ever before, but even has passed from a position of inferiority to England
into a position of distinct superiority as regards its immunity from the
disease. In the large towns (since 1874) small-pox death rates have
become actually trivial."