Page:Vaccination a delusion.djvu/69

CHAP. IV vaccination of the Army was 11 as perfect as endeavours can make it," and that he can make no suggestion to increase its thoroughness (Q. 3,559, 3,560).

Turning now to the diagram (No. XI.) which represents the official statistics, the two lower solid lines show the small-pox death-rate per 100,000 of the force of the Army and Navy for each year, from 1860 to 1894. The lower thick line shows the Army mortality, the thin line that of the Navy. The two higher lines show the total death-rate from disease of the Navy, and of the Home force of the Army, as the tables supplied do not separate the deaths by disease of that portion of the Army stationed abroad.

Looking first at these upper lines, we notice two interesting facts. The first is, the large and steady improvement of both forces as regards health-conditions during the thirty-five years; and the second is the considerable and constant difference in the disease mortality of the two services, the soldiers having thoroughout the whole period a much higher mortality than the sailors. The decrease of the general mortality is clearly due to the great improvements that have been effected in diet, in ventilation, and in general health-conditions; while the difference in health between the two forces is almost certainly due to two causes, the most important being that the sailors spend the greater part of every day in the open-air, and in air of the maximum purity and health-giving properties, that of the open sea; while soldiers live mostly in camps or barracks, often in the vicinity of large towns, and in a more or less impure atmosphere. The other difference is that soldiers are constantly subject to temptations and resulting disease, from which sailors while afloat are wholly free.

Turning now to the lower lines, we see that, as regards small-pox mortality, the Navy suffered most down to 1880, but that since that period the Army has had rather the higher mortality. This has been held to be clue to the less perfect vaccination of the Navy in the earlier period, but of that there is no proof, while