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Russel Wallace : Alfred Russell Wallace (sic)
The President of the Bombay Corporation. Sir,--A copy of the placard headed "The Anti-Vaccination Statistics of Dr. A. R. Wallace" has been sent me. It is plainly intended to imply that all my statistics laid before the Royal Commission were "full of the grossest blunders," and that I reproduced these false statistics in my book some years later, and that I then declared that "no attempt had been made to rebut them." The actual facts, which anyone can ascertain by examining my evidence before the Commission, and my subsequent book, "Vaccination a Delusion," are as follows:-- I brought before the Commission a large mass of statistics, both from English and Foreign countries, all being official and the fullest and best available. Among these was one set of French official statistics and diagrams, which were very remarkable, and the summary of which I gave as being sufficient and presumably accurate. By a minute examination of this "summary" with the detailed tables, which were very voluminous, so many errors were found as to render them quite useless; and I accordingly withdrew them. But all my other statistics and diagrams, which alone were given in my book, and which were all official, were not found to be incorrect, though no doubt tested by the Local Government Board. It is, therefore, the large mass of statistics issued by the French medical authorities that are "full of the grossest blunders," while those used by me in my book are admitted to be correct by the Commission itself. It is these admittedly accurate statistics which demonstrate vaccination to be a delusion; and the statement that I "embodied the same statistical argument" in my pamphlet is a deliberate falsehood intended to deceive the public. Yours faithfully,
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