Forty-five years of registration statistics, proving vaccination to be both useless and dangerous. In two parts / By Alfred R. Wallace.

  • Wallace, Alfred Russel, 1823-1913.
Date:
1889
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Forty-five years of registration statistics, proving vaccination to be both useless and dangerous. In two parts / By Alfred R. Wallace. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    I have been able to ascertain the Small-pox mortality of males in England and Wales between the years 15 and 55, taken as best representing those of the two services ; and the result is a mean Small-pox death rate of 176 per million.* It will be observed that this is but little more than the Navy mortality, though more than double that of the Army, and the question arises, to what is the difference due. And first, why is the Small-pox mortality in the Navy nearly double that of the Army? The * The following are the data on which this calculation is founded :— In the General Report of the last Census, Table 14, p. 89, the numbers of males at successive ages are given for the three last Censuses—1861, 1871, and 1881. By a simple calculation it is found that the number of males of all ages is to that of males aged 15—55 in the proportion of I to -528. Table 4, p. 78, of the same Census Report, gives the male population for the middle of each of the 23 years included in the Army and Navy Retm-n. The mean of these numbers is 11,167,500; and this sum, multiplied by the factor -528, gives 5,896,500 for the average male population of the ages 15—55 for those years. From the tables of Causes of Death at different Periods of Life in the twenty-three successive Reports of the Registrar-General, 1860-1882, I have extracted the deaths from Small-pox of males aged 15—55, the mean annual value of which is 1,041 ; and this number, divided by the number of millions in the corresponding population (5-8965), gives the death-rate per million = 176. The limit of age, 15—55, has been taken because the General Report of the Census of 1881, Table 40, gives, for the Army and Navy, 7,530 men over 45, and 28,834 under 20 years of age. The Small-pox death-rate for same ages, England and Wales, for the years 1850 to 1870, was only 109 per million. Supplement to 35th Report, Table 2, p. 2. The enormous increase is due to the epidemics since 1870.—Ed. B