And now for Ireland, on which so much stress has been laid of late. You tell us, that vaccination has extinguished small-pox in that country. I deny it. For while it is quite true that small-pox is absent—this is not the result of vaccination—for the Registrar General’s returns shew that there is less vaccination in Ireland than in England, and far less than in Scotland. You flatter yourselves that _you_ have put out small-pox by vaccination. In regard to Ireland the fact is, that inoculation has been clandestinely carried on in that country, the people having more confidence in the protecting power of small-pox, a disease which is human, than in vaccination, a disease of a brute. They have this instinct, and this instinct is right in the mother who shudders at the idea of _cow_-pox. You overrule this instinct which is natural, with your reason, you impose a substitute which is revolting. Small-pox is absent from Ireland, but is the mortality less? No, on the contrary under the operation of a natural law which I have illustrated in my essay on vaccination, to which Mr. Snell has alluded, scarlatina has displaced small-pox, and the general mortality has increased. It is a general rule that when small-pox is present you have a low mortality, and when it is absent you have a higher mortality. Small-pox is absent from England, but look at your frightful mortality from scarlatina. {12} In the last two years, I estimate the mortality from scarlatina at 40,000 per annum, and small-pox only 1,500. And what is the nature of this process which you call _vaccination_. Dr. McOubrey has already told you this evening, that the disease which Jenner implanted was _not_ natural cow-pox, but a disease which developed itself in phagædenic ulcerations. You follow Dr. Blane who advocated vaccination direct from the heifer to avoid the admitted dangers arising from arm to arm vaccination—the diseases transplanted therewith. You tell us to-night, that vaccination with cow-pox will prevent small-pox. Did Jenner tell you this? Let me read to you his words at page 7 of his work, published in 1798, he cautions you against trusting to spontaneous cow-pox, lest you should be deceived into a false security.