The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-10-25
PUBLIC OPINION
To the Editor of the Farmer:

 sir-A writer in the Post, recent 1 ly, attempts to answer the indict- | ment against vaccination in India With your permission I should be pleased to reply.
 The writer quotes statistics from a work by one Major James (surgeon in the British Army), as proof of the de cline of smallpox in India by reason of vaccin ation; and assumes Gas they al ways do) that the decrease in the death rate from smallpox is due to vaccination, a conclusion that has been disproved over and over again by men as closely connected with the subject in India as Major James or the es- tfmab1e Mrs. Guernsey. The following report of the Regis trar General of England for 1909 does not seem to bear out the claims of Major James, which are so consoling to our friend who writes for the pub licity committee. It gives respective ly the cities, population, deaths from smallpox and number per millions of population:
 London, 4.833. .93s. ?. 0-04; Calcutta, 1, ,009, ,O08, 3,784, 3750; Bombay, 977, ,822, 473, 483; Madras. 562,191 68, 121,
 If smallpox was so efficiently sup dently wishes the public to believe, it would be interesting to know what your esteemed correspondent has to say to the above figures.
 Why not get an M. D. approved long distance glass and do this searching after the truth scientifically. Place the large end to the eye and study the recent smallpox epidemic in Japan Q90S), 1S,067 cases, 5,837 deaths. The pro-vacs claim these figures throw convincing weight of evidence toward proving the preventive powers of vac cination.
 In the British Army and Navy vac cination is most rigidly enforced, and is expected to be effectual, the Direc- tor-GeneraI of the Army Medical Ser vice reporting to the Royal Cornmfs- sion that vaccination in the Army was as perfect as endeavor could make it, and that he could make no suggestion to increase it's thOroughneSS, yet the statistics from 1864 to 1894 show the death rate from smallpox to be 58 per million in the Army, and 98 per mil lion in the Navy.
 If evidence was of any use in form ing our medical friends opinions, it would seem that experience of Swift zerland, and many English towns, par ticu1arly Leicester, would have much weight as fairy tales from far
 Consider the following reports from a community notorious for the omis sion of vaccination on a large scale. The 61st annual report upon the health of Leicester, England, for 1909, gives the following:
 During the epidemics of 1903 and 1904, developments were very different from the expectations of the pro-vacs, and as it has an important bearing upon the vexed question of the necessity of compulsory vaccination, it may be well death, and mortality:
 1903, 394, 21. 5.3 per. cent; 1904, 321, 4, 1.2 per cent.
 Several of our large cities suffered from epidemics about this period, but in none was recorded such a low case mortality as 1.2 per cent. In view of the large number of unva ccinated persons in Leicester, such a result is remarkabIe.''
 This report was written by the pro vacs health officer, and it must have shocked him some to be obliged, to re- cord the facts.
 For over thirty years compulsory vaccination has been abolished in Lei