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CHAP. I erroneous one substituted. Thus: "Before its discovery (vaccination) the mortality from small-pox in London was forty times greater than it is now." This is an altogether vague and misleading statement. If it means that in some years of the last century it was forty times greater than in some years of this century, it is misleading, because even within the last thirty years some years have a mortality not only forty but eighty and even 200 times as great as others. (In 1875 there were ten deaths per million, while in 1871 there were 2,420 deaths per million.) If it means on an average of say twenty years, it is false. For the twenty years 1869–98 the mortality was about 300 per million, while for the last twenty years before the discovery of small-pox it was about 2,000 per million, or less than seven times as much instead of forty times!

This same tract is full of other equally gross misstatements. It tells us, in large, black type, "With due care in the performance of the operation, no risk of any injurious effects from it need be feared" The Registrar-Greneral himself shows us that this is false in his Report for 1895, Table 17, p. lii.:

An average of 52 children officially murdered every year, and officially acknowledged, is termed " alleged injury," which need not be feared! And these cruel falsehoods are spread broadcast over the country, and the tract bears upon its title-page — [Revised by the Local Government Board, and issued with their sanction].