I then show that _all_ the statistics of small-pox mortality, whether of London; of England, Scotland, and Ireland; of the best vaccinated Continental States; of unvaccinated Leicester; or of the revaccinated Army and Navy, without any exception, prove the _absolute inutility of Vaccination_; and I feel confident that every unprejudiced person who will carefully read these few pages, and will verify such of my statements as seem to them most incredible, will be _compelled_ to come to the same conclusion. I appeal from the medical and official apologists of Vaccination to the intelligence and common sense of my fellow-countrymen, and I urge them to insist upon the immediate abolition of all legislation enforcing or supporting this useless and dangerous operation. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. VACCINATION AND SMALL-POX 5 II. MUCH OF THE EVIDENCE ADDUCED FOR VACCINATION IS WORTHLESS 23 III. THE GENERAL STATISTICS OF SMALL-POX MORTALITY IN RELATION TO VACCINATION 31 IV. TWO GREAT EXPERIMENTS WHICH ARE CONCLUSIVE AGAINST VACCINATION 54 V. CRITICAL REMARKS ON THE “FINAL REPORT” 70 VI. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 80 CHAPTER I VACCINATION AND SMALL-POX Among the greatest self-created scourges of civilized humanity are the group of zymotic diseases, or those which arise from infection, and are believed to be due to the agency of minute organisms which rapidly increase in bodies offering favourable conditions, and often cause death. Such diseases are: plague, small-pox, measles, whooping-cough, yellow fever, typhus and enteric fevers, scarlet fever and diphtheria, and cholera. The conditions which especially favour these diseases are foul air and water, decaying organic matter, overcrowding, and other unwholesome surroundings, whence they have been termed “filth diseases.” The most terrible and fatal of these—the plague—prevails only where people live under the very worst sanitary conditions as regards ventilation, water supply, and general cleanliness. Till about 250 years ago it was as common in England as small-pox has been during the present century, but a very partial and limited advance in healthy conditions of life entirely abolished it, its place being to some extent taken by small-pox, cholera, and fevers. The exact mode by which all these diseases spread is not known; cholera, typhus, and enteric fever are believed to be communicated through the dejecta from the patient contaminating drinking water. The other diseases are spread either by bodily contact or by transmission of germs through the air; but with all of them there must be conditions favouring their reception and increase.