"English history provides interesting facts regarding smallpox. The incidence of smallpox actually increased with the introduction of smallpox vaccine. Prior to 1853 (and the complete vaccination of the nation), there had been about 2,000 deaths per two year period. Nearly 20 years later after the vaccination program had been in effect for those years, the biggest smallpox epidemic of 23,062 occurred. Towns where there had been the most thorough enforcement (such as Leicester, Sheffield) were the most severely hit. By 1900, the effects of healthcare improvements had been weighed against the effects of inoculation, and the English began to resist immunization laws became lax in England, the government still managed to rigidly enforce compulsory vaccination in India. India's smallpox death rate compared very unfavorably with England's at the turn of this century. For example: Bombay, 866 deaths; Calcutta, 1,201 deaths; London, 23 deaths per million. In 1929, the League of Nations reported that India (still under Britain) was "the greatest center of smallpox today.
In our country, smallpox vaccination lost its appeal about 1928, when it was realized that the vaccinated suggered the worst effects of the disease."
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