| Years— | 1804-15 | Vaccinations— | 1345 |
| ” | 1816-30 | ” | 10,386 |
| ” | 1831-37 | ” | None. |
| ” | 1838-50 | ” | 5341 |
| ——— | |||
| Total, | 17,072[266] |
There is much of the like order of “facts in favour of vaccination” current concerning other European populations, which only pass muster because they are rarely subjected to criticism; because vaccination is considered such a benign invention that to question its credentials is wicked; and because it is held that if even some of the claims made for it are touched with fable, yet their effect on the popular mind is so clearly for good in inspiring confidence and overwhelming occasional mishaps, that it is inexpedient to be over-scrupulous. But, however instructive and wholesome may be the exposure of such sophistications, it is necessary to restrain ourselves, and for the remainder of my Story we shall keep to English ground.
From the preceding details we see how far vaccination in Sweden, Denmark and Iceland fell short of the claims made for it by Jenner and his successors. Jenner, it is true, died in 1823, before the more pronounced refutations of his assertions had been evolved, but, as said, it is questionable whether he ever realised that the names of countries stood for millions of men, women and children whose vaccination could only be overtaken by organised exertion in the process of years. His various boasts, therefore, of vaccinated nations and exterminated smallpox are to be taken as proofs of defective arithmetical capacity and of that scientific imagination which runs with possibility and matter-of-fact.
FOOTNOTES:
[263] Baron’s Life of Jenner, vol. ii. p. 293.
[264] Tables relative to Vaccination in Sweden, 1774-1778. London Society for the Abolition of Compulsory Vaccination.
[265] Vaccination Tracts, Part III. No. 14. London, 1878.
[266] Report on the Vaccination Act (1867) from the Select Committee of the House of Commons, 1871. P. 414.