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26, could be discovered. Individuals are constantly seen who state that they have been vaccinated, but upon whom no cicatrices can be traced. In a prognostic and a statistic point of view, it is better, and, I think, necessary, to class them as unvaccinated" (Dr. G-ayton's Report for the Homerton Hospital for 1871–2–3).

The result of this method, which is certainly very general though not universal, is such a falsification of the real facts as to render them worthless for statistical purposes. It is stated by so high an authority as Sir James Paget, in his lectures on Surgical Pathology, that "cicatrices may in time wear out "; while the Vaccination Committee of the Epidemiological Society, in its Report for 1885–6, admitted that " not every cicatrice will permanently exist." Even more important is the fact that in confluent small-pox the cicatrices are hidden, and large numbers of admissions to the hospitals are in the later stages of the disease. Dr. Russell, in his Glasgow Report (1871–2, p. 25), observes, " Sometimes persons were said to be vaccinated, but no marks could be seen, very frequently because of the abundance of the eruption. In some of those cases which recovered, an inspection before dismission discovered vaccine marks sometimes very good."

In many cases private enquiry has detected errors of this kind. In the Second Report of the Commission, pp. 219–20, a witness declared that out of six persons who died of small-pox and were reported by the medical officer of the Union to have been unvaccinated, five were found to have been vaccinated, one being a child who had been vaccinated by the very person who made the report, and another a man who had been twice re vaccinated in the militia (Q. 6730–42). One other case may be given. In October, 1883, three unvaccinated children were stated in the Registrar-General's weekly return of deaths in London to have died of small-pox, "being one, four, and nine years of age, and all from 3, Medland Street, Stepney." On enquiry at the