Public Health Reports1 draws our attention to the astonishing prevalence of smallpox in the United States. In 1937 this country led all other nations of the world, except India, in the number of smallpox cases reported. The number occurring in the United States that year was 11,673. In 1938 an increase was noted to approximately 15,000.
These figures are the more humiliating when we learn that in 1936 England and Wales, with a population of 40,839,000, reported only 12 cases; France, with 41,906,000 population, reported 273 cases; and Germany, with a population of 67,346,000, reported no cases.
The record of