there were 573 deaths. You may say, "Then why is it they don't die in this country?" Turn to Muller's Orphanage in Bristol. In 1872 there were 740 children, all vaccinated, and 292 cases of small-pox amongst them, and there were 17 deaths. But I can give you the reason, perhaps, why the children don't die—why vaccinated children don't die from small-pox so much as we should expect. In 1886, for instance, there were 275 cases of small-pox deaths altogether throughout England and Wales; there was only one vaccinated child that died from small-pox under ten years of age, but there were 93 children who died from "chicken-pox." (Laughter.) And the Registrar-General, in commenting upon the fact, declared that nearly, if not all, those cases should have been registered as small-pox, because chicken-pox "never kills" and Dr. Ogle, the Chief in the Registrar-General's Department, told the Royal Commission as a witness before it, that he had never known chicken-pox kill a child in his life. (Cheers.) Why were not they registered as small-pox? In 1893, the last published. returns we have, there were 127 children who were reported to have died from "chicken-pox"; so perhaps that will explain "why the children don't die." (Laughter and cheers.)
Re-Vaccination.
Then they say if it will only protect for a time re-vaccination is the thing. I want to know how often are we to be re-vaccinated? Jenner said once was enough; Dr. Thorpe Porter, Superintendent of the Dublin Small-pox Hospital Sheds, says he has no faith in re-vaccination; Dr. Pringle, the great Indian vaccinator, says re-vaccination is an unpathological and unphysiological blunder; whereas Dr. Seaton says that to be vaccinated once at puberty is quite enough; Sir William Jenner says you ought to be vaccinated once in infancy, again at seven years, and again every time an epidemic comes along (laughter): Dr. Oakes says you ought to be vaccinated every ten years; and a great German vaccinator, whose name I won't attempt to pronounce, says you ought to be vaccinated every four months until you cannot be re-vaccinated any longer. (Laughter.) What, to be kept in a constant state of cow-pox in order to prevent small-pox? Why I would sooner have the small-pox, it would be a thousand times better, and have done with it. (Cheers.)
THE SMALL-POX NURSE FABLE.
Then people say, "What about the nurses; why, don't you know that for 50 years there has not been known a single nurse in any small-pox hospital who has taken the small-pox, because they have been re-vaccinated?" Dr. Cory was responsible for the card which has been handed for years to mothers who brought their children to the vaccination station, and which served to stamp this delusion upon the country; and when Dr. Cory was before the Royal Commission this card was brought to his notice. "How is it that it has been published; is it a fact?" he was asked, and the answer was "No." "Is it not a fact that nurses who have taken small-pox had been re-vaccinated?"
