[6] The same view is taken even by some advocates of vaccination in Germany. In an account of the German Commission for the Consideration of the Vaccination Question in the British Medical Journal, August 29, 1885 (p. 408), we find it stated: “In the view of Dr. Koch, no other statistical material than the mortality from small-pox can be relied upon; questions as to the vaccinated or unvaccinated condition of the patient leaving too much room for error.”
[7] It is always stated that only the deaths of those persons belonging to the Church of England, or who were buried in the churchyards, are recorded in the “Bills.” This seems very improbable, because the “searchers” must have visited the house and recorded the death before the burial; and as they were of course paid a fee for each death certified by them, they would not enquire very closely as to the religious opinions of the family, or where the deceased was to be buried. A friend of mine who lived in London before the epoch of registration informs me that he remembers the “searchers’” visit on the occasion of the death of his grandmother. They were two women dressed in black; the family were strict dissenters, and the burial was at the Bunhill Fields cemetery for Nonconformists. This case proves that in all probability the “Bills” did include the deaths of many, perhaps most, Nonconformists.
[8] Final Report of Roy. Comm., p. 20 (85).
[9] As an example of the Commissioners’ statistical fallacies in treating the subject of changed age-incidence, see Mr. Alexander Paul’s A Royal Commission’s Arithmetic (King & Son, 1897), and, especially, Mr. A. Milnes’ Statistics of Small-pox and Vaccination in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, September, 1897.
[10] The highest small-pox mortality in London was in 1772, when 3,992 deaths were recorded in an estimated population of 727,000, or a death-rate of not quite 5,500 per million. (See Second Report, p. 290.)
[11] The small-pox deaths under one year in England have varied during the last fifty years from 8·6 to 27 per cent. of the whole. (See Final Report, p. 154.)
[12] This almost exactly agrees with the ages of the boys who are admitted between nine and eleven, and leave at fourteen. (See Low’s Handbook of London Charities.)
[13] From 1850 to 1873 the private vaccinations have been estimated according to their proportion of the whole since they have been officially recorded.
[14] Although the Commission make no mention of Mr. Biggs’ tables and diagrams showing the rise of infant-mortality with increased vaccination, and its fall as vaccination diminished, they occupied a whole day cross-examining him upon them, endeavouring by the minutest criticism to diminish their importance. Especially it was urged that the increase or decrease of mortality did not agree in detail with the increase or decrease of vaccination, forgetting that there are numerous causes contributing to all variations of death-rate, while vaccination is only alleged to be a contributory cause, clearly visible in general results, but not to be detected in smaller variations (see Fourth Report, Q. 17,513-17,744, or pp. 370 to 381). Mr. Bigg’s cross-examination in all occupies 110 pages of the Report.
[15] It was introduced into the Navy in 1801, and in that year the medical officers of the fleet presented Jenner with a special gold medal!