Vaccination Vindicated. By C. MacVail, M.D. (Cassell and Co.)— Originally
a reply to Dr. Wallace's " Small-Pox Statistics and Vaccination," the work has been expanded into a review of the anti-vaccination literature of the day. As Dr. MacVail says, "there is no vaccination question amongst medical men now ;" the law has settled that ; the combat is kept up by the Anti- Vaccination Society, who do most of the pamphleteering now. The contest has, therefore, degenerated as much as the anti-vaccinators would have us believe the disease itself has. The Sheffield out- break, we should think, points to an opposite conclusion. The writer deals with the subject in all its bearings with a self-control and fairness which are all the more pleasing from the sad want of them generally shown. We cannot blame him when he waxes indignant over the extraordinary discrepancies and blunders made so frequently in anti-vaccine pamphlets. The fame of the anti- vaccination partisans, as the most ingenious manipulators of statistics since the invention of the science, has spread beyond the arena of the battle. The stories related of the Indian magicians recall themselves to our memory. To draw comparisons would be odious, but on consideration, we should award the palm to the latter, their " juggling " being decidedly more finished, and still only partially unravelled. The unpleasant part of the whole business is, that any one in this enlightened period could be guilty of such truly childish distortion of facts and figures. The liberties taken with Government statistics are known to many, but the public will never take the trouble to disbelieve them, nor will they ever know the blinding extent to which they have been carried. If it were possible, we would gladly disbelieve some of the statements as to inaccuracies made by Dr. Mac Vail; but the original statistics themselves are an unanswerable witness. It is much to be regretted that the cause has fallen into the hands of the worthy descendants of the "cow-faced boy" party. Dr. MacVail has given his charts and statistics with great clearness and precision, and has two very good chapters on " Re- vaccination," and the "Alleged Evils of Vaccination." Vaccina- tion Vindicated is altogether a very fair and open survey of the question as it now stands.
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