Page:Vaccination a delusion.djvu/73

CHAP. IV {|
 * Per Million.
 * Army||(1873–94) small-pox death rate
 * 37
 * Navy|| |||36.8
 * Leicester|| ages 15–45|||14.4
 * }
 * 37
 * Navy|| |||36.8
 * Leicester|| ages 15–45|||14.4
 * }
 * Leicester|| ages 15–45|||14.4
 * }

It is thus completely demonstrated that all the statements by which, the public has been gulled for so many years, as to the almost complete immunity of the revaccinated Army and Navy, are absolutely false. It is all what Americans call "bluff." There is no immunity. They have no protection. When exposed to infection, they do suffer just as much as other populations, or even more. In the whole of the nineteen years 1878-1896 inclusive, unvaccinated Leicester had so few small-pox deaths that the Registrar-General represents the average by the decimal O01 per thousand population, equal to ten per million, while for the twelve years 1878-1889 there was less than one death per annum! Here we have real immunity, real protection; and it is obtained by attending to sanitation and isolation, coupled with the almost total neglect of vaccination. Neither Army nor Navy can show any such results as this. In the whole twentynine years tabulated in the Second Eeport the Army had not one year without a small-pox death, while the Navy never had more than three consecutive years without a death, and only six years in the whole period.

Now if ever there exists such a thing as a crucial test, this of the Army and Navy, as compared with Ireland, and especially with Leicester, affords such a test. The populations concerned are hundreds of thousands; the time extends to a generation; the