Smallpox death rate during the Sheffield Epidemic of 1887-1888

Towards the end of the 1880s, a localized smallpox epidemic had broken out in the North of England, and had infected thousands in the region; with one news report claiming that Sheffield was responsible for three quarters of all smallpox cases in England at this time; just under 500 people died from smallpox in this pandemic. Of the entire population of Sheffield, 98 percent claimed to have been vaccinated, and (assuming these figures are correct) the death rate among cases of vaccinated people was below five percent. In stark contrast to this, cases among unvaccinated patients resulted in fatalities almost fifty percent of the time, meaning that infected persons who were not vaccinated were ten times more likely to succumb to the disease than those who had been. This ratio is similar among the infected aged above ten years, however vaccinated patients below the age of ten were 25 times more likely to survive.