G. P.: "Mr. Wood's statistics do not vitiate my argument in the very slightest. His selected figures, using the lowest rate since 1881, merely show that diphtheria as a whole was more prevalent in 1897 than in 1887. He cannot and does not attack the statement that the case-mortality has been lessened where antitoxin has been used, and his test is no test at all."
Mr. Wood: "Let me give the annual death-rate from diphtheria to a million living persons from 1881 to 1900, taken from the Registrar-General's returns." (Gives them.)
G. P.: "One last word in answer to Mr. Wood. I repeat that his figures show nothing more than the accepted fact that diphtheria as a whole has been increasing for the last 30 years. This has no bearing at all on the also accepted fact that where antitoxin is used the mortality is lessened, and Mr. Wood has not, in fact, denied this. His confusion of total mortality and case-mortality only shows that he does not understand the elementary principles of statistics."
A few weeks later, at the Bournbrook and Selly Oak Social Club, Mr. Wood gives his "thrilling lecture, with lantern views," Behind the Closed Doors of the Laboratory: one of his stock lectures. In it, he says:—
"The proof of the pudding was in the eating. In 1881 the death-rate from diphtheria was 127 per million; in 1900 it was 290 per million. He had but to state that the antitoxin treatment was introduced about 1894."
Four days later, at an overflowingly-attended Citizen Social at Birkenhead:—
"The proof of the pudding lay in the eating. In 1881 in each million of the population 121 persons died from diphtheria, while in 1900 the mortality from the same disease was 290 persons in each million of the population, and the antitoxin treatment was introduced in 1894."
A few weeks later, at Ipswich, the same thing. This time, he is challenged by letters in the East Anglian Daily Times, and again quotes the Registrar-General.
A few weeks later, at the Hyde Labour Church: the Closed Doors of the Laboratory again:—
"He found from the Registrar-General's returns that the death-rate had gone up in cases in which they were told that wonderful things had been done by experiments on living animals. If a lower death-rate could be shown, then the vivisectionists might have something to go upon; but they could not show a lower death-rate."