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may be a highly debateable matter, but the two things are entirely distinct. It was thought inadvisable
to make it appear that the school authorities were in any way trying to effect compulsion in the matter
of vaccination and, therefore, on the report of these proceedings going to the Council, they resolved
(April 3rd, 1906)—
" That no examination of children attending schools maintained by the Council, with
a view of ascertaining whether they have been vaccinated or not, be held unless the authority
of the Council and parents to conduct such an examination shall have been previously given."
Meanwhile, in a neighbouring school, several cases had occurred. but the threatened outbreak
died away.
It is probable that the risk to an unvaccinated person at present in London is very slight.
The majority of the population is vaccinated, and where small-pox occurs it is at once surrounded as
it were by a hedge of vaccinated persons,except perhaps in the more crowded and poorer districts, where
a person may go about suffering from a slight attack, infectious but unnoticed, as so commonly happens
with tramps. Although some writers have tried to establish a mode of diffusion of small-pox by the
air, grosser means are more likely, and probably the risk of even an unprotected person coming in
contact with small-pox is, as has been said, at the present time comparatively small.
Small-pox in School Children in the last Epidemic.—During the discussion,
Sir Shirley Murphy submitted for the information of the sub-committee a memorandum showing the
incidence of small-pox attacks and deaths upon vaccinated and unvaccinated children of school age
in London, based upon the experience of the small-pox epidemic of 1901-2.

*Cases in which no vaccination cicatrix has been observed, but in which
the evidence as to vaccination is inconclusive.
These figures relate solely to London small-pox cases and deaths. In order to arrive at the true
relative incidence of small-pox upon persons vaccinated and upon those unvaccinated these figures need
to be considered in relation to the vaccinated and unvaccinated population in London, and an accurate
estimate of these two populations is a matter of some difficulty. It is, however, possible to obtain from
figures given in the Local Government Board's reports what must be regarded as a maximum estimate
of the unvaccinated members at the school age of the London community at the time of the
last epidemic. The reports in question show the number of children remaining "unaccounted for"
as regards vaccination out of the total births in each year, and it has been assumed for the present
purpose that the proportion is maintained during the periods of school life under consideration. No
allowance can be made by this method for children vaccinated at a later date than that for which the
returns of the vaccination officers were compiled, and on this account, therefore, the estimated figures
of the unvaccinated population are obviously exaggerated, and to whatever extent the exaggeration
occurs the calculated incidence of small-pox upon the unvaccinated population is correspondinglv
diminished.