The Army and Navy as a Conclusive Test
In the Report of the Medical Officer of the Local Government Board for 1884, it is alleged that when an adult is re vaccinated "he will receive the full measure of protection that vaccination is capable of giving him." In the same year the Medical Officer of the General Post Office stated in a circular, "It is desirable, in order to obtain full security, that the operation (vaccination) should be repeated at a later period of life"; and the circular of the National Health Society already referred to states that "soldiers who have been re vaccinated can live in cities intensely affected by small-pox without themselves suffering to any appreciable degree from the disease."
Let us then see how far these official statements are true or false. In their Final Report the Commissioners give the statistics of small-pox mortality in the Army and Navy from 1860 to 1894, and, although the latest order for the vaccination of the whole force in the Navy was only made in 1871, there can be no doubt that, practically, the whole of the men had been revaccinated long before that period;[1] but certainly since 1873 all without exception, both English and foreign, were revaccinated; and in the Army every recruit has been revaccinated since 1860 (see 2nd Eeport, Q. 3,453, 3,455; and for the Navy, Q. 2,645, 6, 3,212-13, and 3,226-3,229). Brigade-Surgeon William Nash, M.D., informed the Commission that the vaccination and re-
- ↑ It was introduced into the Navy in 1801, and in that year the medical officers of the fleet presented Jenner with a special gold medal!
of mortality did not agree in detail with the increase or decrease of vaccination, forgetting that there are numerous causes contributing to all variations of death-rate, while vaccination is only alleged to be a contributory cause, clearly visible in general results, but not to be detected in smaller variations (see Fourth Report, Q. 17,513–17,744, or pp. 370 to 381). Mr. Bigg's cross-examination in all occupies 110 pages of the Report.
