The effect of these exertions was immediately perceived by a striking diminution of the number of deaths from smallpox within the Bills of Mortality. In 1803 they amounted to 1173; in 1804 they were only 622. The contrast will appear still greater when it is considered that the deaths amounted to 2409 in the year 1800; and that the annual average of deaths for fifty years previously was 2018.[131] The passage is noteworthy as representative of many similar passages in the literature of Vaccination. It might be described as dishonest, but the craft is so transparent that the epithet would be extravagant. The probable explanation is, that Vaccination had come to be regarded as so unquestionably beneficial that _anything_ might be asserted in its favour, and that _anything_ was true. Else a child might have asked how 12,000 or 24,000 vaccinations could by any possibility affect an immediate diminution in the deaths from smallpox in a population of eight or nine hundred thousand. Baron would also lead his readers to suppose that the low mortality of 1804, namely 622, was unexampled, though with the Bills of Mortality before him, he might have seen that the deaths in 1797 fell to 522; and he knew that the low figure of 1804 was not maintained, but rose to 1685 in 1805. But as remarked, _any statement_, if only it be favourable to Vaccination, is expected to pass muster as veracious, and the public credulity justifies the expectation. Let us look at the London Bills for ourselves, taking the last ten years of the 18th and the first ten years of the 19th Centuries, and try to discover what they teach. Burials from From From From Years. all Diseases. Smallpox. Fevers. Measles. 1791 18,760 1747 2013 156 1792 20,213 1568 2236 450 1793 21,749 2382 2426 248 1794 19,241 1913 1935 172 1795 21,179 1040 1947 328 1796 19,288 3548 1547 307 1797 17,014 522 1526 222 1798 18,155 2237 1754 196 1799 18,134 1111 1784 233 1800 23,068 2409 2712 395 ------- ------ ------ ---- 196,801 18,477 19,880 2707