But we have yet another example of an extremely well-vaccinated town in this epidemic—Warrington, an official report on which has just been issued. It is stated that 99·2 per cent. of the population had been vaccinated, yet the comparison with unvaccinated Leicester stands as follows:
| Epidemic of 1892-3. | Leicester. | Warrington. |
|---|---|---|
| S.P. cases per 10,000 population | 19·3 | 123·3 |
| ” deaths ” ” ” | 1·4 | 11·4 |
Here then we see that in the thoroughly vaccinated town the cases are more than six times, and the deaths more than eight times, that of the almost unvaccinated town, again proving that the most efficient vaccination does not diminish the number of attacks, and does not mitigate the severity of the disease, but that both these results follow from sanitation and isolation.
Now let us see how the Commissioners, in their Final Report deal with the above facts, which are surely most vital to the very essence of the enquiry, and the statistics relating to which have been laid before them with a wealth of detail not equalled in any other case. Practically they ignore it altogether. Of course I am referring to the Majority Report, to which alone the Government and the unenlightened public are likely to pay any attention. Even the figures above quoted as to Leicester and Warrington are to be found only in the Report of the Minority, who also give the case of another town, Dewsbury, which has partially rejected vaccination, but not nearly to so large an extent as Leicester, and in the same epidemic it stood almost exactly between unvaccinated Leicester and well-vaccinated Warrington, thus:
| Leicester | had | 1·1 | mortality per 10,000 living |
| Dewsbury | ” | 6·7 | ” ” ” ” |
| Warrington | ” | 11·8 | ” ” ” ” |
Here again we see that it is the unvaccinated towns that suffer least, not the most vaccinated. The public of course have been terrorised by the case of Gloucester, where a large default in vaccination was followed by a very severe epidemic of small-pox. The Majority Report refers to this in par. 373, intending to hold it up as a warning, but strangely enough in so important a document, say the reverse of what they mean to say, giving to it “very little,” instead of “very much” small-pox. This case, however, has really nothing whatever to do with the question at issue, because, although anti-vaccinators maintain that vaccination has not the least effect in preventing or mitigating small-pox, they do not maintain that the absence of vaccination prevents it. What they urge is, that sanitation and isolation are the effective and only preventives, and it was because Leicester attended thoroughly to these matters, and Gloucester wholly neglected them that the one suffered so little and the other so much in the recent epidemic. On this subject every enquirer should read the summary of the facts given in the Minority Report, paragraph 261.
To return to the Majority Report. Its references to Leicester are scattered over 80 pages, referring separately to the hospital staff, and the relations of vaccinated and unvaccinated to small-pox; while in only a few paragraphs (par. 480-486) do they deal with the main question and the results of the system of isolation adopted. These results they endeavour to minimise by declaring that the disease was remarkably “slight in its fatality,” yet they end by admitting that “the experience of Leicester affords cogent evidence that the vigilant and prompt application of isolation ... is a most powerful agent in limiting the spread of small-pox.” A little further on (par. 500) they say, when discussing this very point—how far sanitation may be relied on in place of vaccination—“The experiment has never been tried.” Surely a town of 180,000 inhabitants which has neglected vaccination for twenty years, is an experiment. But a little further on we see the reason of this refusal to consider Leicester a test experiment. Par. 502 begins thus: “The question we are now discussing must, of course, be argued on the hypothesis that vaccination affords protection against small-pox.” What an amazing basis of argument for a Commission supposed to be enquiring into this very point! They then continue: “Who can possibly say that if the disease once entered a town the population of which was entirely or almost entirely unprotected, it would not spread with a rapidity of which we have in recent times had no experience?” But Leicester is such a town. Its infants—the class which always suffers in the largest numbers—are almost wholly unvaccinated, and the great majority of its adults have, according to the bulk of the medical supporters of vaccination, long outgrown the benefits, if any, of infant-vaccination. The disease has been introduced into the town twenty times before 1884, and twelve times during the last epidemic (Final Report, par. 482 and 483). The doctors have been asserting for years that once small-pox comes to Leicester it will run through the town like wild-fire. But instead of that it has been quelled with far less loss than in any of the best vaccinated towns in England. But the Commissioners ignore this actual experiment, and soar into the regions of conjecture with, “Who can possibly say?”—concluding the paragraph with—“A priori reasoning on such a question is of little or no value.” Very true. But a posteriori reasoning, from the cases of Leicester, Birmingham, Warrington, Dewsbury, and Gloucester, is of value; but it is of value as showing the utter uselessness of vaccination, and it is therefore, perhaps, wise for the professional upholders of vaccination to ignore it. But surely it is not wise for a presumably impartial Commission to ignore it as it is ignored in this Report.[14]
The Army and Navy as a Conclusive Test
In the Report of the Medical Officer of the Local Government Board for 1884, it is alleged that when an adult is revaccinated “he will receive the full measure of protection that vaccination is capable of giving him.” In the same year the Medical Officer of the General Post Office stated in a circular, “It is desirable, in order to obtain full security, that the operation (vaccination) should be repeated at a later period of life”; and the circular of the National Health Society already referred to states that “soldiers who have been revaccinated can live in cities intensely affected by small-pox without themselves suffering to any appreciable degree from the disease.” Let us then see how far these official statements are true or false.