View report page

207
Their occurrence has no doubt not unfrequently caused prejudice
to the practice of vaccination."And in section 419 is recited the
case of "a child previously in good health, and vaccinated with
calf-lymph by means of a needle which had never been used before,
who died about six weeks afterwards, with severely ulcerated arms
and ulcers in several parts of the body and limbs. No precaution
had been neglected, and the event could only, as in other similar
cases, be attributed to what is known as idiosyncrasy on the part
of the child, a peculiarity of health attended by exceptional
susceptibility to the specific virus of vaccinia."
In sections 420 and 421 it is pointed out that " It was at one
time doubted whether syphilis could result (from vaccination),
and it was even confidently asserted that it could not," but that
" Facts which were, not long after the issue of Mr. Simon's report,
brought before the profession, and which were carefully investigated,
made it certain that the negative conclusion which had
been arrived at was a mistaken one, and from that time no doubt
can have been entertained by any that it is possible to convey
syphilis in the act of vaccination."
Putting together all these admitted elements of danger, though
each may be slight in itself, we think that the sum of them
constitutes a very serious objection even to the modified form of
compulsion favoured by our colleagues.
It appears to us that the case for even this modified compulsion
is practically surrendered in section 437, where our
colleagues insist on the right of parental option as to the lymph
to be used, on the ground that the risk of syphilis from arm-toarm
vaccination, however slight, is "naturally regarded by a
parent with abhorrence." We cannot understand on what
principle a parent is entitled to refuse arm-to-arm vaccination,
because he regards its risks with abhorrence, but is not entitled
also to refuse the not unreal risks of calf-lymph, though he also
regards these with abhorrence.