The Nemesis of Folly

ing from consequences which were virtually certain to arrive, sooner or later. The exigencies of monthly publication preclude us from quoting figures which vary from day to day, and it must be enough to say that the number of cases at Gloucester Avhich have been diagnosed as small-pox has been so large that the utmost anxiety is reasonably felt as to when, and where, the epidemic will end. These diagnoses are not those of inexperienced young practitioners who have had little, if any, opportunity of observing well-marked cases of this terrible disease, but of highly trained specialists who know very well the difference between chicken-pox and small-pox. The suggestion that Gloucester and Cheltenham, and other places, are having to contend with nothing worse than outbreaks of chicken-pox is too absurd to be discussed. We prefer the evidence of the experts to the theories of the prejudiced. We have no intention of entering upon the futile and exhausted controversy about the efficacy of inoculation as a preventive of small-pox. That is a closed issue in the minds not only of most medical men but of most persons capable of weighing the value of evidence. The fact that a sprinkling of doctors and of perfectly intelligent and instructed lay people are either doubtful of the virtue of vaccination or are satisfied that it has none need not detain