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20
that which in our century appertains to the isolated
and infrequent periods of the greater epidemics. The
figures indeed stand out as a lasting proof of the blow
vaccination has dealt to a disease of whose remorseless
hunger these dusty records bear witness.
Appended is a table of the London death rate from Small
Pox per million, calculated for the period before registration
was in operation, by the able statistician Di. Farr, together with the recorded figures of a later time.

These figures, dealing with lengthy time periods, taken from
the records of mortality observed during three centuries, art
not selected on account of their magnitude, but rather from
the authentic nature of their source. Although fragmentary
they sufficiently reflect the conditions existing before and
after the introduction of Vaccination. It was in the last
decade of the eighteenth century that Jenner announced his
discovery, From that time is observed a rapid but steady
decline in the mortality, a decline which in the recorded
rate has converted thousands into hundreds, hundreds into
tens, and tens into units. Contemporaneous with the
appearance in England of a declining death rate, a similar
condition is observable in Continental countries.