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(1) In the first place they are interested parties, both pecuniarily and in a much greater degree on account of professional training and prestige. Only three years after vaccination was first introduced, on the recommendation of the heads of the profession, and their expressed conviction that it would give lifelong protection against a terrible disease, Parliament voted Jenner £10,000 in 1802, and £20,000 more in 1807, besides endowing vaccination with £3,000 a year in 1808.

From that time doctors as a body were committed to its support; it has been taught for nearly a century as an almost infallible remedy in all our medical schools; and has been for the most part accepted by the public and the legislature as if it were a well-established scientific principle, instead of being as the historian of epidemic diseases -- Dr. Creighton -- well terms it, a grotesque superstition.

(2) Whether vaccination produces good or bad results can only be determined by its effects on a large scale. We must see whether, during epidemics -- at different periods or in different places -- small-pox mortality is diminished as compared with that from other diseases in proportion to the total amount of vaccination; and this can be done only by the Statistician, using the best materials -- in this country those of our Registrar-Generals.

Two of the greatest medical authorities on vaccination, Sir John Simon and Dr. Guy, F.R.S., have declared this to be necessary. The former, in 1857, in a Parliamentary Report on the History and Practice of Vaccination, says: "From individual cases the appeal is to masses of national experience."

Dr. Guy, in a celebrated paper published by the Royal Statistical Society, says: "Is vaccination a preventive of small-pox? To this question there is, there can be, no answer except such as is couched in the language of figures." The language of figures is "Statistics"; hence, statisticians, not doctors, are the only good judges of this question.

But the last Royal Commission consisted wholly of doctors, lawyers, politicians and country gentlemen, not one trained statistician! Hence, as I have demonstrated in my "Vaccination a Delusion", they have made the grossest blunders and their Report is absolutely worthless.

II. What is Proved by the Best Statistical Evidence Available

(1) The only complete and trustworthy records of mortality and of the causes of death which we possess, are those of the Registrar-Generals for England and Wales, for Scotland and for Ireland; the former from 1838, the two latter from later dates.

But for London we have records from a much earlier period -- the Bills of Mortality, which, though not completely accurate, are yet considered to show the rise and fall of the death-rates from the chief diseases then recognised, with sufficient general accuracy to be very valuable.

They are continually appealed to in order to show the enormous improvement in the health of London in the nineteenth as compared with the eighteenth century, and this comparison as regards small-pox is one of the stock arguments of the doctors, and was strongly urged by the Royal Commissioners.

It is stated over and over again that, down to the year 1800, small-pox deaths were excessive, but that from the very introduction of vaccination in 1800 they began to decrease, and have been getting less and less ever since. No other disease, it is said, has decreased in the same striking manner.

(2) This being the very foundation of the supposed evidence in favour of vaccination it is necessary to examine it closely, when it will be found to be wholly worthless, and to illustrate in a striking manner the complete ignorance of doctors, and also of the Royal Commissioners, of the very elements of statistical enquiry. This requires some little explanation, though it is really a very simple matter.

In order to be able to study the effect of any alleged cause of improved health of the community, we must compare the death-rates before and after the introduction of the supposed cause of improvement (in this case vaccination), and also compare these with the death-rates from other groups of diseases, and from all causes.

These facts are given by the Registrar-General in tables showing the number of deaths each year in each million of the population. Now, small-pox, many fevers, cholera, etc. are what are termed epidemic diseases, which attack large populations at irregular intervals with great severity, while at other times they are far less fatal or more local. Hence the yearly death-rates vary enormously.

In 1796 more than 4,000 per million died of small-pox in London, while in the next year there were only about 800, and the following year (1798) over 3,000. Again, in 1870 less than 100 per million died of it, while in 1871 there were about 300, and in 1872 about 2,500.

Thus the figures go increasing and decreasing so suddenly and so irregularly, that by taking only a few years at one period, and a few at another, you can show an increase or a decrease according to what you wish to prove. Hence it is often ignorantly said that figures can be made to prove anything. But this is quite untrue. They can often be made to show anything, which is quite another matter; but if properly exhibited and compared they lead to one conclusion only; they show the truth.

(3) There are a few simple rules for getting at the truth in such statistics as we are now discussing. One is that we must take as long periods of time as possible; another is that we must use the largest populations available.

Two other conditions are almost equally important; we must compare, when possible, equal periods before and after vaccination was introduced; and we must also compare the increase or diminution of small-pox with those of other diseases, in order to discover whether there is anything exceptional in the decrease of small-pox mortality which requires a peculiar cause to explain it.

But the ever-varying figures in long columns are so confusing to most people, that it is impossible to make anything out of them, and to simplify them, averages have to be taken, showing the deaths every five or every ten years, and in other ways, so as to find out what the figures really mean, and even then, by altering the periods or beginning at different years, a very different result may often be shown.

(4) By far the best way and that usually adopted by statisticians and mathematicians, is to draw out diagrams by which the whole course of the mortality from each disease or group of diseases can be seen and compared at a glance. From the various elaborate tables given in the Reports of the Royal Commission and from the annual reports of the Registrar-General.

I constructed twelve diagrams, each showing the comparative rise or fall of small-pox mortality and other diseases in various places and under different conditions; and all these without exception demonstrate either that vaccination has no effect whatever, or that it tends to increase rather than decrease small-pox mortality.

(5) As many people do not understand these diagrams I here give a part of one of them in a simplified form in order to render statistical diagrams intelligible to all, and it will serve to show what is the nature of the evidence against vaccination, and also how I prove that the statements made by the doctors and by the Royal Commissioners are not only misleading but absolutely untrue. CLICK HERE to view graph.

(6) The figures on the bottom and top of the diagram show the years, from 1770 to 1830, while those on the right and left show the number of deaths to each million of population. The three wavy lines show the proportion of deaths to population during this period of 60 years; the lower line the small-pox deaths; that next above it the deaths from the other zymotic diseases (fevers, diphtheria, whooping-cough, etc.); while the top line shows deaths from all diseases. These last deaths, being so much more numerous, have had to be drawn out on a smaller scale in order to show them on the same page as the others.

(7) This diagram shows us that small-pox decreased during the ten years before vaccination at very nearly the same rate as it did in the ten years after vaccination. The other zymotic diseases decreased even more than small-pox during the ten years after vaccination.

General mortality also decreased after 1800 more rapidly than before 1800. Yet the Royal Commissioners declare that there was nothing but vaccination to produce the decrease of small-pox, and that there was no improvement in sanitation in the beginning of the nineteenth century, as compared with the latter part of the eighteenth century, to account for the difference.

(8) Now, in an Appendix to my "Vaccination a Delusion," I have given an account of a number of improvements affecting health at this very period which are amply sufficient to produce the results shown by the diagram, and I believe it is the most compact and most interesting account of these improvements yet given. The chief of them are

(1) That many West-end squares and suburbs were built at this very period, and were inhabited chiefly by city people.

(2) That the streets were more systematically cleaned and the roads improved.

(3) That the water supply was much improved.

(4) That potatoes, tea, and coffee came into more general use; while the better roads allowed more fresh meat, vegetables and milk to be used.

(5) Cemeteries were formed outside London and many City graveyards were permanently closed.

The result of these five groups of improvements was strikingly shown in the decrease of the death-rate in a number of the most fatal diseases (as recorded in a Table by Dr. Farr, reprinted in the Third Report of the Royal Commission) to fully one-half in 1801-10 as compared with 1771-80; an amount of improvement which has never occurred in any similar period during the whole of the 270 years for which we have official statistics. And yet the Royal Commissioners declare that nothing but vaccination can explain the corresponding and very similar decrease in small-pox!

(9) As you will now understand the method of exhibiting statistics by means of diagrams, I will proceed to state the other more important conclusions to be drawn from our national statistics of death-rates. Those who wish to study them more fully must obtain the book itself, and examine the diagrams and the full details there given.

III. London Death-Rates during Registration. 1838-96

(1) These tables show us that neither the general mortality nor that from zymotic diseases decreased much till about 1868, but from that date there has been a large and continuous decrease. Small-pox had a sudden increase in 1838, in which year the mortality was greater than it had been for the preceding twenty-five years. Then it decreased slowly till 1870, and this decrease is always ascribed by the doctors to vaccination.

But in 1871 there was a great epidemic, when the mortality was greater than at any period during the preceding seventy years of constantly increasing vaccination! Since 1871 small-pox has decreased, but only at about the same rate as the other zymotic diseases.

The interesting thing to note here is, that the Main Drainage of London was completed in 1865, and about five years later (the time required for the connection of all the house drainage) the marked diminution in the mortality above-mentioned began to show itself. And if we average the enormous small-pox mortality of 1871 with that of the preceding ten years, we shall find that it will bring the small-pox mortality into almost exact correspondence with that from all other causes, and thus leave nothing to be imputed to vaccination!

(2) In another diagram in my book I show the mortality from the five groups of zymotic diseases taken separately: Fevers, Whooping-cough, Diphtheria and Scarlatina, Measles, and Small-pox, for the same period of Government Registration. All of these diseases show a nearly similar decrease in the latter half of the period, except measles, which shows hardly any diminution; but there is reason to believe that the cause of this is, that, when vaccinated children after a short illness die of small-pox, measles or chicken-pox are often given as the cause of death.

IV. Death-Rates in England and Wales during the Period of Registration

(1) My third diagram is one of the most instructive and conclusive in my book, because it deals with the whole population of England and Wales and the death-rates from various groups of diseases as in the illustrative diagram.

In the first twenty-five years, from 1848 to 1872, there is on the average hardly any decrease either of general mortality, zymotics, or small-pox, since the enormous small-pox mortality of 1871-72 if distributed over the preceding ten years will bring it to correspond closely with the other classes of mortality.

But from 1873 to 1895 -- the last twenty-three years shown -- there is a diminution in all three of the diseases to a considerable amount. For the last ten years the diminution in small-pox is the greatest; but this can be proved to be not due to vaccination, as I will now explain.

(2) It is only from the year 1872 (after the great epidemic of small-pox) that all vaccinations, private as well as public, have been officially registered, and a table showing their amount has been given in the Final Report of the Royal Commission. From 1872 to 1882 the vaccinations amounted to 95 percent of the births; practically all were vaccinated if we allow for those that died before they could be operated on or very soon afterwards.

But from that date the number of vaccinations steadily decreased, till in 1895 they were only 80 percent of the births, a diminution of 15 percent in fourteen years. If vaccination were the chief or only preventive of small-pox we ought to have a considerable increase of the disease during this period, instead of which it is in this period only that the diminution of small-pox has been more marked than that of the other zymotic diseases!

Here, then, we have the first distinct proof that it is vaccination which keeps up the disease, and that when a larger number of children escape the blood-poisoning lancet small-pox diminishes!

Another and even more conclusive proof is given . . . by Dr. Ruata, M.D.1 The whole male population of Italy are revaccinated on entering the army. Under the age of 20, men and women are alike as regards vaccination; afterwards men have an enormous advantage, if vaccination is of any use.

Yet, over 20, many more men than women die of small-pox, while under 20 the mortality is equal, again demonstrating that vaccination increases small-pox mortality!

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